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Soup

Mock-turtle-soup

A hearty soup made with calf's head, beef, ham shank, vegetables, herbs, and a thickening of flour and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 24 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Mock-turtle-soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Scald the calf's head with the skin on.

  2. Remove the horny part from the calf's head.

  3. Cut the calf's head into 2-inch square pieces.

  4. Clean and dry the pieces in a cloth.

Make the soup

  1. Place the pieces in a stew pan with 4 quarts of water.

  2. Add the beef, calf's foot, ham shank, onion, turnip, carrots, celery, cloves, whole pepper, sweet herbs, and lemon.

  3. Stew gently until the liquid is reduced by half.

  4. Strain the liquid and return it to the stew pan with the calf's head pieces.

  5. Add marjoram, savory, thyme, chopped parsley, ground cloves, ground mace, cayenne pepper, green onions, and Sherry wine.

  6. Stew gently until the soup is reduced to 2 quarts.

Thicken and finish

  1. Heat a little broth.

  2. Mix in the flour.

  3. Smooth the flour with the egg yolks.

  4. Stir over gentle heat until nearly boiling.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Supplies gelatinous connective tissue that gives the finished soup body and a rich mouthfeel.
Beef
Adds savoury meaty depth to the broth during the long gentle stew.
Calf's foot
Releases gelatin into the broth, adding body and a silky texture.
Flour
Thickens the broth as its starch swells with heat.
Egg yolks
Enrich and further thicken the soup, adding richness and smoothness when gently heated.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Stir over gentle heat until nearly boiling. Egg yolks thicken by coagulating when heated; if the soup boils after they are added, they can curdle and turn grainy, so heat must stay gentle.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, onion, turnip, carrot, celery, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, onion, turnip, carrot, celery, pepper. 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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