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Soup

A Mock Turtle

A soup made from calf's head, stock, wine, herbs, and garnished with forcemeat balls and small eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

A Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Halve and clean the calf's head, then half boil it.

  2. Remove the meat in square bits and break the bones.

  3. Boil the bones in veal or beef stock.

Make the gravy

  1. Fry shallots in butter, then add flour to thicken the gravy.

  2. Stir the gravy into the stock and boil, skimming carefully.

  3. Add the head and white wine, then simmer until the meat is tender.

Season and serve

  1. Ten minutes before serving, add basil, tarragon, chives, parsley, Cayenne pepper, salt, mushroom ketchup, and soy sauce.

  2. Squeeze lemon into the tureen and pour the soup over it.

  3. Garnish with forcemeat balls and small eggs.

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. Shallot + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Basil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together326 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 rich texture.
Butter
Fat for frying the shallots, carrying their flavour into the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat and broth.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the broth.
Mushroom ketchup
Contributes savoury, umami depth to the finished soup.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity that balances the rich, fatty broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the stock after adding the gravy. Skimming removes coagulated proteins and fat that rise as the stock boils, keeping the soup clear and preventing a greasy or cloudy result.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, flour, veal, white wine, tarragon, chive):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, flour, veal, white wine, tarragon, chive. 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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