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Soup

Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made with meat broth, lemon juice, mushroom ketchup, anchovy essence, wine, curry powder, cayenne pepper, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and anchovy match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Simmer the meat broth gently for about 1 hour until tender, being careful not to overcook.

  2. Add lemon juice, mushroom ketchup, essence of anchovy, wine, curry powder, cayenne pepper, and lemon peel.

  3. Let it simmer for 5 more minutes, then remove the lemon peel.

  4. Serve the soup in a tureen.

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. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together335 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat broth
Forms the liquid base and carries the savoury body of the soup.
Madeira or claret wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the broth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich broth.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour.
Essence of anchovy
Adds concentrated savoury, salty depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer the broth gently. Rapid boiling can make the broth cloudy and toughen the meat, so a gentle simmer keeps it clear and tender while the flavour develops.

“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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