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Mock Turtle or Calf's-head Soup

A hearty soup made from calf's head, pig's feet, and seasoned meat, finished with force-meat balls and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Mock Turtle or Calf's-head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the head and feet

  1. Place the calf's head and pig's feet in a large pot and cover with 1 gallon of water.

  2. Boil for 3 hours until the flesh easily slips from the bones.

  3. Remove the head and continue boiling the feet.

  4. Cut the meat from the head, selecting enough fatty portions to fill a teacup, and set aside to cool.

  5. Remove the brains and set aside.

  6. Chop the remaining meat and tongue finely, then season with salt, pepper, marjoram, thyme, cloves, mace, allspice, and nutmeg.

  7. Return the seasoned meat to the pot with the pig's feet and boil slowly for 2 more hours.

  8. Let the soup cool overnight.

Finish and serve

  1. An hour before serving, warm the stock and strain it carefully.

  2. Cut the reserved meat into small squares and add to the soup.

  3. To make force-meat balls, mash the yolks of 5 hard-boiled eggs into a paste, adding the brains, butter, and salt.

  4. Mix in the beaten eggs and form into balls the size of pigeon eggs.

  5. Add the balls to the soup 5 minutes before serving.

  6. Stir in 1 tablespoon of browned flour mixed with cold water and let it boil.

  7. Add the juice of 1 lemon and serve.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 soup body and a rich texture.
Pig's feet
Release gelatin during long boiling, thickening the stock and giving it body.
Eggs
Bind the force-meat balls so they hold their shape while cooking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the force-meat balls.
Browned flour
Thickens the stock and adds a toasted, deeper flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, heavy broth.

The step that matters

Adding the browned flour slurry. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold water before it goes in, and the soup must then boil. Lumps form if flour meets hot liquid directly, and boiling is needed to fully cook the starch and reach full thickness.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, marjoram, thyme, clove, allspice, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, marjoram, thyme, clove, allspice, nutmeg, egg. 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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