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Soup

Mock Turtle

A soup made from meat, onions, turnip, and broth thickened with potato flour and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,352 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Put the meat into a pot with water, onions, turnip, and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim the surface, and let it gently boil for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the broth and let it cool to remove the fat.

Thicken and serve

  1. Reheat the broth, stir in the potato flour mixed with milk or cream, and let it thicken.

  2. Season to taste and serve.

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. Turnip + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,586 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Gives the broth its savoury, meaty flavour as it simmers for hours.
Potato flour
Thickens the broth so it becomes body-rich rather than thin.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the finished soup.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth during simmering.
Turnip
Adds subtle sweetness and earthy body to the broth.

The step that matters

Let the broth cool to remove the fat. Fat rises and sets on top as the broth cools, so it can be lifted off cleanly. Skipping this step leaves the soup greasy, and a slow, gentle simmer keeps the broth clear rather than cloudy.

Swap the thyme

The recipe marks thyme as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, turnip, potato, flour, milk, mutton):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, turnip, potato, flour, milk, mutton. 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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