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Mock- Turtle-soup

A hearty soup made from calf head, beef, ham shank, vegetables, herbs, and sherry, thickened with 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, then remove the horny parts and cut them into 2-inch square pieces.

  2. Clean and dry the pieces with a cloth, then place them in a stew pan with 4 quarts of liquid made from the beef, calf's foot, ham shank, onion, turnip, carrots, celery, cloves, whole pepper, sweet herbs, and lemon.

Make the soup

  1. Add these ingredients to 8 quarts of water and simmer gently until the liquid is reduced by half.

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

  3. Add marjoram, savory, thyme, chopped parsley, pounded cloves, pounded mace, a little Cayenne pepper, green onions, and Sherry wine.

  4. Simmer gently until the soup is reduced to 2 quarts.

Thicken and finish

  1. Heat a little broth, mix in flour, smoothing it with the yolks of 2 eggs, and 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
Provides gelatin and body, giving the finished soup a rich, full texture.
Beef
Adds meaty depth and flavour to the long-simmered broth.
Flour
Thickens the broth when heated, giving it a smoother body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and smooth the thickened soup, adding richness and body.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic complexity to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour and egg yolks. Flour must be mixed smoothly into hot broth and heated only gently. Adding it lumpy or boiling the mixture can cause lumps and let the egg yolks curdle, leaving the soup grainy.

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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