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Turtle Soup

A soup made from turtle meat, shells, and a blend of herbs and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turtle

  1. Hang the turtle by the hind fins, cut off the head, and allow it to drain.

  2. Cut off the fore fins and separate the carapace (upper shell) from the plastron (lower shell).

  3. Remove the fat from the carapace and plastron, then cut off the hind fins.

  4. Take the lean meat from the plastron and fins, cut it into 2‑inch pieces, and place it in a stew pan.

  5. Scald the carapace, plastron, and fins in hot water for a few minutes to separate the shell easily.

Make the stock

  1. Cut the carapace and plastron into 6‑inch pieces and place them in a stock pot with light veal stock.

  2. Boil until the meat is tender, then remove it and place it in cold water.

  3. Free the meat from the bones and cut it into 1‑inch pieces.

  4. Return the bones to the stock and boil gently for 2 hours, then strain.

  5. Cut the fins into 1‑inch wide pieces and boil them in stock with onion, cloves, parsley, thyme, sweet basil, and marjoram until tender.

  6. Remove the fins and add the stock to the other stock.

Season and finish

  1. In a bowl, pound together nutmeg, allspice, mace, cloves, pepper, and salt.

  2. Mix the spices with curry powder to taste 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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Basil + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

What each ingredient does

Turtle
Provides the main meat and the shell pieces that build the body of the soup.
Light veal stock
Supplies the liquid base and savory body that the soup is built on.
Lemons
Add sharp acidity that brightens the rich, heavy flavor of the meat and stock.

The step that matters

Boiling the shell pieces until tender, then separating the meat from the bones. Boiling must be gentle and timed to the meat, not rushed. Overcooking toughens and breaks down the meat, while undercooking leaves it chewy and hard to free from the bone.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, clove, parsley, thyme, basil, marjoram, shallot):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, clove, parsley, thyme, basil, marjoram, shallot. 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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