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Mock Turtle Soup

A light soup made from water, onions, turnip, and optional mutton or veal, thickened with potato flour and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine water, onions, turnip, and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, then skim the surface and reduce to a gentle boil for 3 hours.

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

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat the broth, then stir in the potato flour mixed with milk or cream until thickened.

  2. Add mutton or veal and thyme if desired.

  3. 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

Onions
Release sweetness and savory flavor into the broth as they simmer.
Turnip
Adds earthy, mildly sweet flavor and body to the simmered broth.
French potato flour
Thickens the reheated broth when stirred in with milk or cream.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and creaminess, softening the flavor and texture of the thickened soup.

The step that matters

Skim and simmer gently. Skimming removes foam and impurities, and a gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and prevents it from turning cloudy or greasy during the long cook.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

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