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Another Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf's head, beef, veal, onions, sage, and butter, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Another Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Order a fine fat calf's head from the butcher, ensuring it is split carefully.

  2. Soak the head in spring water for 1 hour.

  3. Place the head in a stewpan with enough cold water to cover it and an additional ½ gallon. Boil for 1 hour, skimming off the scum.

Make the broth

  1. Remove the head and let it cool; add 10 pounds of beef and veal to the broth.

  2. Once cool, cut the meat and tongue from the head into bite-sized pieces and set aside.

  3. Return the bones to the broth, skim clean, and cover. Boil for 5 hours, then strain the broth.

  4. The leftover meat can be used for potting.

Finish the soup

  1. The next day, add 12 ounces of sliced onions and 4 ounces of chopped sage to the broth with ½ pound of butter. Fry gently for 1 hour, avoiding scorching.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

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

  4. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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, thick texture.
Beef and veal
Adds meaty flavour and depth to the broth as it simmers.
Onions
Sweetness and savoury aroma develop as they fry gently in the broth.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and rounding the soup.

The step that matters

Frying the onions, sage and butter gently. Fried over heat that is too high, the onions and butter will scorch, leaving bitter, burnt flavours in the soup. Gentle heat lets the onions soften and sweeten slowly.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, beef, veal, onion, butter):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, beef, veal, onion, butter. 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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