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Turtle Soup From Dried Turtle

A soup made with beef, ham, veal, dried turtle, vegetables, herbs, and spices, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Turtle Soup From Dried Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turtle

  1. Cut the shin of beef, ham, and knuckle of veal into small pieces and place them in a saucepan or stockpot.

  2. Soak the dried turtle in cold water for 48 hours, changing the water 3-4 times.

  3. Simmer the soaked turtle in a saucepan of water for 20-24 hours.

Make the soup

  1. Add the turtle to the saucepan with the other meats and pour in the simmering liquid.

  2. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil, skimming as necessary.

  3. Add the chopped onions, carrot, turnip, celery, thyme, marjoram, basil, peppercorns, mace, cloves, and season with salt and cayenne.

  4. Boil or simmer gently for 8 hours.

  5. Remove the pieces of turtle and strain the liquid through a fine sieve into another saucepan.

Clarify and finish

  1. Let the liquid cool, skim off the fat, and add the whites and shells of 3 slightly beaten eggs to clarify.

  2. Boil once more, then remove from heat and let sit for 30 minutes.

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. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 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

Dried turtle
Provides the main flavour and gelatinous body after long soaking and simmering.
Eggs (in the method)
Whites and shells collect fine particles as they set, clarifying the broth to a clear finish.
Shin of beef
Long simmering breaks down connective tissue, enriching the broth with body and savoury depth.
Knuckle of veal
Releases gelatin during long simmering, giving the stock a fuller, silkier body.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg whites and shells. Adding the eggs to cooled liquid and then heating gently lets the whites coagulate and trap cloudy particles. Boiling too vigorously can break up the raft and leave the soup cloudy.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, veal, onion, carrot, turnip, 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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