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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf's head, ham, mushrooms, and spices, simmered in veal stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

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

  2. Saw the head open and remove the brains.

  3. Tie the head in a clean cloth and boil it for about 30 minutes.

  4. Remove the head, strip the meat from the bones, and cut the meat into small square pieces.

  5. Soak the meat in cold water to keep it white, then drain it.

Make the soup

  1. Place the meat in a soup pot and cover it with veal stock.

  2. Boil gently until tender.

  3. In a separate pan, melt the butter, then add a few spoons of stock to prevent burning.

  4. Add the chopped ham, mushrooms, and parsley to the butter and cook briefly.

  5. Combine the butter mixture with the meat and stock.

  6. Season with salt, pepper, mace, allspice, cayenne, soy sauce, port wine, and mustard.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides the gelatinous meat and bones that give the soup its body and richness.
Butter
Carries the flavor of the ham, mushrooms and parsley and adds richness to the soup.
Lean ham
Adds savory, salty depth that builds the soup's meaty flavor.
Mushrooms
Add earthy umami flavor and a soft texture to the soup.
Veal stock
Forms the liquid base and carries flavor through the whole soup.

The step that matters

Adding stock to the butter before combining. Adding a few spoons of stock to the melted butter keeps the butter from burning and scorching the ham and mushrooms, which would give the soup a bitter, burnt taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, mushroom, parsley, veal, pepper, allspice):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, mushroom, parsley, veal, pepper, allspice. 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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