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Mock Turtle Soup

A hearty soup made from calf head, beef, ham, vegetables, herbs, Madeira wine, and broiled forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 30 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 ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Scald the calf's head with the skin on.

  2. Remove the horny part.

  3. Cut it into 2-inch pieces.

  4. Wash and clean the pieces.

  5. Dry them with a cloth.

Make the broth

  1. In a stewpan, combine the calf's head pieces with 8 quarts of water, beef, calf's foot, ham, onion, carrots, turnip, celery, cloves, pepper, sweet herbs, lemon peel, and truffles.

  2. Stew gently until the broth is reduced by half.

  3. Strain the broth.

Finish the soup

  1. Return the broth to the stewpan with the calf's head pieces, marjoram, savory, thyme, parsley, ground cloves, ground mace, Cayenne pepper, green onions, shallot, mushrooms, and Madeira wine.

  2. Stew until the soup is reduced to 2 quarts.

  3. Heat a little broth.

  4. Mix in flour and the egg yolks.

  5. Stir over gentle heat until near boiling.

  6. Add this mixture to the soup while stirring.

  7. Stew for another hour.

  8. Remove from heat.

  9. Stir in the juice of half a lemon and half an orange.

  10. Add the broiled forcemeat balls.

  11. Serve hot 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. 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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides gelatin and body, giving the soup its rich, thick texture.
Calf's foot
Adds gelatin, which thickens the broth and gives it a silky mouthfeel.
Beef
Contributes savory meaty flavor to the broth during long, gentle stewing.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup when gently heated, adding richness and smoothness.
Flour
Thickens the mixture added to the soup, giving body to the liquid.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk mixture over gentle heat. Egg yolks thicken by coagulating when heated gently. If the mixture gets too hot or boils, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving the soup grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, onion, carrot, turnip, celery, pepper. 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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