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Mock Turtle Soup

A hearty soup made from veal and beef stock, calf's head, lemon juice, Madeira, Dr. Kitchener's sauce, and egg and force-meat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Prepare a good brown stock of veal and beef with onions, carrots, turnips, and celery, along with mace, cloves, and peppercorns.

  2. Strain the stock and refrigerate overnight.

  3. Remove the fat from the cold stock.

Prepare the head

  1. Scald the calf's head until near simmering.

  2. Wash the calf's head well.

  3. Cut the calf's head into small pieces off the bones.

  4. Add the bones and meat to the stock and boil gently for two hours.

  5. Remove the bones and clean the meat.

Finish the soup

  1. Thicken the soup with flour and water.

  2. Stir in the juice of two lemons, Dr. Kitchener's sauce, and Madeira or sherry.

  3. Season the soup with Cayenne and salt.

  4. Make egg balls and force-meat balls the size of a pigeon's egg.

  5. Let the balls boil in the soup for ten minutes.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal and beef stock
Provides the rich, savoury body that forms the base of the soup.
Calf's head
Supplies gelatinous meat and skin that give the soup its body and texture.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it is mixed with water and heated.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the rich stock and balances its fattiness.
Madeira or sherry
Adds depth and a fortified wine sweetness and aroma to the soup.
Egg balls and force-meat balls
Add soft, tender bites that set as they cook in the soup.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour and water. Flour must be mixed smoothly with water before going into the hot soup, otherwise it clumps. Starch thickens the liquid only when it is heated, so the soup needs to simmer long enough for it to fully thicken.

“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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