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Imitation of Mock-turtle

A dish of veal and calf's feet simmered with spices, then served with walnut and mushroom ketchup, sherry, and accompaniments.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Imitation of Mock-turtle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stock

  1. In a pan, combine the veal, cow heels or calf's feet, onions, cloves, peppercorns, allspice, mace, and sweet herbs.

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

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 3 hours.

Make the mock turtle

  1. Once cooled, remove the fat and cut the meat and feet into ½ inch pieces.

  2. Remove bones and coarse parts, then warm the meat with walnut ketchup, mushroom ketchup, sherry or Madeira, mushroom powder, and meat jelly.

  3. If needed, adjust seasoning before serving with hard-boiled eggs, forcemeat balls, a squeeze of lemon, 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Allspice + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Provides gelatin and meaty body that gives the soup its rich, thick texture.
Cow heels or calf's feet
Their collagen releases gelatin during long cooking, producing the jelly and mouthfeel.
Sherry or madeira wine
Adds acidity and sweet, fortified depth that rounds out the savoury broth.
Walnut ketchup
Contributes a dark, tangy, umami-rich flavour to the meat.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury umami depth that reinforces the meaty character of the dish.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add a mild, creamy richness and classic texture contrast to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Remove the fat after cooling. Once cooled, the stock's fat solidifies on the surface and can be lifted off cleanly. Removing it before reheating keeps the dish from tasting greasy and clear of excess fat.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, clove, allspice, walnut, ketchup, mushroom. 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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