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Soup

Mock-turtle

A hearty soup made from calf's head, veal, pickled pork, and aromatic herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 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 ↓

Mock-turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean the calf's head in hot water, squeezing to remove blood, then soak in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Place the head in a pot with warm water, veal, pickled pork, roasted onion, lemon rind, pot-herbs, carrots, and celery.

  3. Boil for 2 hours, then remove the head and pork.

Make the stock

  1. Strip the skin from the head, remove the brain, tongue, and eye; break the bones and return them to the pot.

  2. Boil for an additional 2 hours, making forcemeat balls from the brains and slicing the tongue.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a separate pan, melt butter and sauté onions, basil, marjoram, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, mace, and allspice.

  2. Add flour to the sautéed mixture to thicken the soup, then gradually stir in the boiling stock to avoid lumps.

  3. Let the soup boil gently for 1 hour, then strain it through a tammy.

  4. Return the strained soup to the heat, add the meat, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides gelatin and body, giving the soup a rich, full texture as it simmers.
Veal
Adds meaty flavour and gelatin to the stock during the long simmer.
Pickled pork
Contributes salty, savoury depth and fat that enriches the broth.
Flour
Thickens the sautéed mixture and stock, giving the soup body without lumps when stirred in gradually.
Butter
Carries the sautéed onions and herbs, adding fat and browned, aromatic flavour.
Onions
Sweetness and aroma when sautéed, building the flavour base of the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the boiling stock into the flour mixture. Flour clumps if added to liquid all at once. Adding hot stock gradually while stirring disperses the starch so it thickens smoothly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, onion, clove, carrot, celery, butter):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, onion, clove, carrot, celery, butter. 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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