Why it works: Sherry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,273 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Turtle Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the turtle
Select the thickest pieces of dried turtle.
Boil the turtle in water for 6 hours or soak it in cold water for 3 days, changing the water daily.
Make the soup
Stew the turtle in 2 quarts of mixed Consomme until quite soft, which will take several hours.
Once soft, remove the turtle, cut it into 1‑inch pieces, and add to the soup.
Stir in the sherry and serve with lemon and cayenne on the side.
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.
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Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,273 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
- Dried turtle
- Provides the main chewy, meaty texture once softened by long cooking.
- Consommé
- Forms the clear savoury liquid that the turtle stews in and becomes the soup base.
- Sherry
- Adds acidity and a fragrant, mellow aroma to the finished soup.
The step that matters
Softening the dried turtle. Dried turtle is tough and only becomes tender through long, gentle simmering or soaking, which breaks down its connective tissue. Rushing this step leaves the meat chewy, so it should be checked for softness before cutting and adding it to the soup.
“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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