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Mock-turtle Soup

A hearty soup made from calf head, beef hough, veal knuckle, vegetables, herbs, and a roux, finished with ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mock-turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean and scrape the calf's head from the butcher, or wash it if unclean.

  2. Place the head in a pot with cold water and boil until the hair loosens.

  3. Scrape off the hair from the head.

  4. Split the head.

  5. Clean the head thoroughly.

  6. Remove the brains.

  7. Put the cleaned head in a pot with enough water to cover it and skim frequently as it warms.

  8. Let it boil gently for 1 hour.

  9. Remove the head and cut the meat into 1-inch pieces.

  10. Scrape the tongue.

  11. Cut the tongue into pieces.

  12. Set the tongue aside.

Make the soup

  1. Add the beef hough, knuckle of veal, onions, carrot, turnip, sweet herbs, and whole pepper to the pot.

  2. Boil the brains separately in a cloth.

  3. Pound the boiled brains.

  4. Add the pounded brains to the pot.

  5. Let the soup boil slowly for 4-5 hours.

  6. Strain the soup.

  7. Remove the fat when cool.

Make the thickening and finish

  1. Melt the butter in a stew-pan.

  2. Add the flour to the melted butter.

  3. Stir until browned.

  4. Add a little of the soup, sweet basil, and parsley to the roux.

  5. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

  6. Strain this mixture.

  7. Combine the strained mixture with the meat pieces and the soup.

  8. Boil the combined mixture for 1 hour.

  9. Finally, add the ketchup.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

Calf's head
Provides the gelatinous meat and body that gives the soup its main substance.
Beef hough
Adds meaty flavour and body to the stock during the long simmer.
Knuckle of veal
Its bones release gelatin, adding richness and a silky mouthfeel to the broth.
Brains
Pounded and cooked into the soup, they thicken it and add a creamy richness.
Flour
Browned in butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Butter
Fat for the roux, adding richness and helping the flour brown and thicken.

The step that matters

Stirring the roux until browned. Flour cooked in melted butter must be stirred constantly; uneven heat or stopping early leaves raw floury taste or scorching, and the roux's colour and flavour depend on this step.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, carrot, turnip, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, carrot, turnip, pepper, butter, flour. 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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