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Turtle Soup, with Dried Turtle

A broth made from dried turtle, ham, beef, veal, vegetables, herbs, spices, and egg whites, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Turtle Soup, with Dried Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turtle

  1. Soak the turtle in warm water for two days, changing the water four times.

  2. Simmer the soaked turtle in a saucepan for one day.

Make the stock

  1. Combine the ham, shin of beef (cut into pieces), veal, soaked turtle, and enough water to cover in a stock pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil. Skim off any foam that rises.

  3. Add the chopped celery, carrot, turnip, onions, dried basil, marjoram, thyme, peppercorns, mace, cloves, cayenne, pepper, and salt.

  4. Boil gently for eight hours.

  5. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  6. Remove the turtle pieces from the strained soup. Cut the turtle into square pieces and set aside.

  7. Remove any fat from the cooled soup.

  8. Return the fat-free soup to a saucepan.

Clarify and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites and shells with a little cold water. Add the beaten egg mixture to the soup.

  2. Stir over heat until it boils. Simmer for 30 minutes until clear. Remove the scum.

  3. Strain the soup through a clean cloth.

  4. Reheat the soup. Add lemon juice, salt, and the reserved turtle pieces.

  5. If desired, add Madeira wine and caramel for color.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried turtle
Main meat that gives the soup its body and flavour after long soaking and simmering.
Egg whites
Coagulate as they heat, trapping suspended particles so the soup becomes clear.
Shin of beef
Collagen-rich cut that releases gelatin during long simmering, adding body to the stock.
Knuckle veal
Bones and connective tissue add gelatin, giving the stock a fuller, silkier texture.
Lean ham
Adds salty, savoury depth to the stock.
Onions
Build savoury sweetness and aroma as they simmer into the stock.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg whites. Heat must be raised gently so the egg whites set slowly and form a raft that traps cloudiness. Stirring them in too vigorously or letting the soup boil hard before the raft forms breaks it up, leaving the soup cloudy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, veal, clove, pepper, egg, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, veal, clove, pepper, egg, celery. 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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