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Listers Mock Mock Turtle

A stew of beef, cow heel, herbs, and spices simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 780 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Listers Mock Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pan

  1. Line the bottom of a 5‑pint stew pan with bacon or ham.

  2. Add beef, cow heel, carrot rind, lemon‑thyme, winter savory, parsley, basil, and shallots.

  3. Tie the herbs and spices in a bundle with mace and add to the pan.

  4. Insert the onion with cloves and allspice and black pepper.

Simmer and finish

  1. Pour in cold water, cover, and simmer on low for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the cover, brown the meat, then fill the pan with boiling water.

  3. Simmer gently for 2 hours until the meat is tender.

  4. Cut the meat into bite‑sized pieces and add to the soup.

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. Thyme + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  4. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  5. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean gravy beef
Provides the main meat flavour and, after long simmering, tender meat for the soup.
Cow heel
Adds gelatin from its connective tissue, giving the soup body and a rich mouthfeel.
Bacon or ham
Adds smoky, savoury fat that flavours the stock and browns the meat.
Onion
Contributes savoury sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 2 hours. Boiling rather than gently simmering makes the stock cloudy and toughens the meat. A low, steady simmer slowly breaks down connective tissue and gelatin into a clear, tender result.

“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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