Skip to main content
Main

Mock Turtle

A savory soup made from a calf's head, egg yolks, herbs, and Madeira wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Veal and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,784 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean the calf's head and cut it in half.

  2. Boil the head in veal and beef broth until tender.

Make the soup

  1. Fry shallots in butter.

  2. Add flour to thicken the gravy.

  3. Stir the thickened gravy into the broth.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Add the calf's head and Madeira wine.

  6. Simmer until the meat is tender.

  7. Ten minutes before serving, add basil, tarragon, chives, Cayenne pepper, black pepper, and coarse sea salt to taste.

  8. Stir in mushroom ketchup and soy sauce.

Serve

  1. Squeeze lemon juice into the tureen.

  2. Pour the soup over the 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. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Ham + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Calf's head
Provides the gelatinous meat and skin that give the soup its body and texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind and thicken the soup.
Butter
Carries the shallot flavour and adds richness during the initial frying.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the broth and gives the soup body.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour as it simmers into the soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, heavy broth.

The step that matters

Simmer until the meat is tender. Calf's head needs a long, gentle simmer so its connective tissue breaks down into gelatin. Rushing or boiling hard leaves the meat tough and the broth thin.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, ham, veal, beef, butter, flour, madeira wine):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, ham, veal, beef, butter, flour, madeira wine. 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.

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes