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Soup

Clear Mock Turtle

A clear soup made with calf head, veal knuckle, ham, vegetables, herbs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Clear Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Bone the calf's head and parboil it in plenty of cold water with a little salt for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove it from the water and let it cool, then trim away all the rough parts.

Simmer the soup

  1. Place the half head in a stewpan with the knuckle of veal, ham, and all the cleaned and chopped vegetables.

  2. Add the herbs, mace, and stock to the stewpan.

  3. Simmer gently for several hours until the flavors meld.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Carrot + basiltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Gives the soup its body and gelatin, giving a rich, thick texture as it simmers.
Knuckle veal
Contributes gelatin and meaty depth to the stock during the long simmer.
Raw ham
Adds savory, salty depth that rounds out the flavor of the broth.
Lean beef
Adds meaty flavor to the stock.

The step that matters

Gentle simmering. Simmering gently rather than boiling keeps the broth clear and lets collagen from the bones and head break down slowly into a smooth, full-bodied stock without cloudiness.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, carrot, turnip, onion, clove, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, carrot, turnip, onion, clove, celery. 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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