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Another Mock Turtle

A boiled veal and cowheel dish seasoned with herbs, spices, and served with eggs, forcemeat balls, lemon juice, and soy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Another Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Braise the meat

  1. Combine the knuckle of veal, cowheels, onions, cloves, pepper, Jamaica pepper, mace, and sweet herbs in a pan.

  2. Cover the pan with water and tie a thick paper over the pan.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for three hours.

  4. Once cooled, remove the fat carefully.

Prepare and serve

  1. Cut the meat and feet into 1.5‑inch square pieces.

  2. Remove bones and coarser parts.

  3. Warm the meat with walnut and mushroom catsup, sherry or Madeira wine, mushroom powder, and the meat jelly.

  4. Heat until hot.

  5. Adjust seasoning if needed.

  6. Serve with hard-boiled eggs, forcemeat balls, lemon juice, and soy sauce.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Clove + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Provides rich meat and gelatin that give the broth body and a jelly-like set when cooled.
Cowheels
Supply collagen that converts to gelatin during long cooking, adding body and a silky texture.
Sherry or madeira wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balance the rich, gelatinous meat.
Walnut catsup
Contributes concentrated savoury, umami flavour that deepens the sauce.
Mushroom catsup
Contributes concentrated savoury, umami flavour that deepens the sauce.

The step that matters

Removing the fat after cooling. Fat rises and sets on top of the cooled liquid, so it is easiest to lift off when cold. Leaving it in makes the dish greasy, and removing it too roughly can break up the jelly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, clove, pepper, walnut, mushroom, sherry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, clove, pepper, walnut, mushroom, sherry. 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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