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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf's head, butter, ham, herbs, onions, mushrooms, broth, Madeira or sherry, flour, Cayenne pepper, salt, and citrus juices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 688 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Scald the calf's head and remove the brains.

  2. Tie the head in a cloth and boil for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the meat from the bones and cut into small pieces.

  4. Wash the meat in cold water and place in a stew-pan with enough broth to cover it.

  5. Boil gently for 1 hour until tender.

Make the soup base

  1. In another pan, melt butter and add ham, parsley, marjoram, basil, onions, mushrooms, and shallots.

  2. Add 2 pints of broth or gravy and simmer for 2 hours.

  3. Stir in enough flour to absorb the butter, then add broth to make 2 tureens.

  4. Add Madeira or sherry and boil for a few minutes.

  5. Rub through a sieve and combine with the calf's head meat.

Finish and serve

  1. Add forcemeat balls and egg balls, season with Cayenne and salt, and finish with orange and lemon juice.

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. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Marjoram + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together287 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 give the soup its rich texture.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and, with flour, forms the roux that thickens the soup.
Flour
Absorbs the butter to form a roux that thickens the liquid.
Broth or gravy
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and body of the soup.
Madeira or sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished soup.
Onions
Build sweetness and savoury depth as they cook down in the butter.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour with the butter. The flour must be fully absorbed into the melted butter so it forms a smooth roux; if it is added loosely, it clumps and leaves lumps that the sieve may not remove.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, parsley, marjoram, basil, mushroom, shallot):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, parsley, marjoram, basil, mushroom, shallot. 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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