Skip to main content
Main

Mock Turtle Soup

A savory soup made with beef or veal, vegetables, and seasonings, finished with egg and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, combine onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, peppercorns, and meat.

  2. Add water and bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for 1.5 hours.

  4. Strain the broth and return to the pot.

Season and serve

  1. Add vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and salt.

  2. Slowly stir in the beaten egg and parsley before serving.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or veal
Provides the meaty flavour and body of the broth as it simmers.
Egg
Stirred in beaten, it sets into fine strands that add body to the soup.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich, savoury broth.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury depth and a tangy, fermented note to the broth.

The step that matters

Slowly stir in the beaten egg. Pouring the egg in slowly while the broth is hot and moving lets it disperse and set into fine strands. Dumping it in at once can leave clumps of cooked egg instead of a smooth, silky texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, beef, vinegar, sauce, egg, parsley):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, beef, vinegar, sauce, egg, parsley. 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

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes