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Mock Turtle Soup

A broth made from calf's head, vegetables, spices, and meat, finished with butter, flour, lemon, and optional sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Clean the calf's head thoroughly and cut it into several pieces.

  2. Soak in cold water for 1 hour.

  3. Drain the water.

  4. Add 4 quarts of cold water and 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt.

  5. Cook slowly until the meat slips from the bones.

  6. Remove the meat but leave the bones in.

  7. Add the turnip, celery roots, herbs, cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns, allspice, onions, and carrots.

  8. Let simmer for 2 hours.

  9. Strain and set aside until cold.

Finish the soup

  1. Before serving, remove the fat.

  2. For every quart of stock, brown 1 tablespoon of butter.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of flour and gradually stir in the stock.

  4. Season with salt and pepper if needed.

  5. Dice ½ cup of the cooked meat for each quart and add to the stock along with slices of hard-boiled egg or yolks made into balls.

  6. Add the juice of ½ lemon and thin slices of lemon rind.

  7. Stir in 2 tablespoons of sherry if desired.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides gelatin and meat that give the stock body and a rich texture.
Celery roots
Add a savory, aromatic flavor base to the long-simmered stock.
Butter
Browned with the flour to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Flour
Thickens the stock when cooked with browned butter.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, heavy stock.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a touch of sweetness and acidity to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Browning the butter and flour. Cook the butter and flour together until lightly browned before adding stock, so the roux thickens smoothly without lumps and gains a nutty flavor. Adding stock too early can leave flour clumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, celery, cinnamon, clove, allspice, carrot, butter):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, celery, cinnamon, clove, allspice, carrot, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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