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Mock Turtle

A hearty soup made from small pieces of meat, onions, turnip, and thickened with potato flour and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,352 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Put the meat into 3 pints of water with the onions, turnip, and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim thoroughly, and let it gently boil for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the broth and let it cool to remove the fat.

Thicken and serve

  1. Reheat the broth, stir in the potato flour mixed with milk or cream, and let it thicken.

  2. Season to taste 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. Turnip + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 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

Meat
Gives the broth its savoury, meaty flavour as it simmers.
French potato flour
Thickens the broth to a smooth, lightly body-filled consistency when stirred in and reheated.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a softer, creamier texture to the thickened broth.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Turnip
Adds earthy, subtly sweet flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the broth thoroughly after it comes to a boil. Foam and fat rise to the surface as the broth heats. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and prevents greasy, cloudy results before the long simmer.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, turnip, potato, flour, milk, mutton, thyme):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, turnip, potato, flour, milk, mutton, thyme. 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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