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Mock-turtle Soup

A soup made from turtle meat, beef, vegetables, seasonings, arrowroot, ketchup, and turtle blood.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and ketchup work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mock-turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the turtle body into pieces and place in a saucepan with enough water to cover.

  2. If the turtle is small, add 2 pounds of beef.

  3. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  4. Add vegetables and seasonings, then boil for 1.5 hours.

  5. Remove meat from the back and upper joints of the hind legs and set aside.

  6. Continue boiling the soup for 2 more hours.

Finish the soup

  1. Remove remaining meat from bones and pound it in a mortar.

  2. Return the soup to the saucepan.

  3. Stir until boiling.

  4. Strain through a fine sieve.

  5. Add the reserved diced meat.

  6. Mix arrowroot with ketchup and add the mixture to the soup.

  7. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  8. Let the soup cool slightly.

  9. Add the turtle blood. Stir gently until the color changes and the soup thickens, but do not boil.

  10. Season to taste.

  11. Serve with the pieces of hare 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. Arrowroot + ketchuptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Beef + arrowroottop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Beef + ketchuptop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Turtle
Provides the main meat and the body of the soup's flavour.
Arrowroot
Thickens the soup into a smooth, glossy body when heated.
Turtle blood
Adds richness and helps thicken the soup as it gently sets.
Beef
Adds extra meat and savoury depth when the turtle is small.

The step that matters

Adding the turtle blood. Once blood is stirred in, boiling can curdle it and leave a grainy texture. Stirring gently off the boil lets it thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ketchup):

  1. Onionfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ketchup. 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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