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White Mock Turtle Soup

A hearty soup made with calf's head, veal, ham, vegetables, stock, roux, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

White Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Bone the calf's head and cut up the knuckle of veal.

  2. In a well-buttered stewpan, combine veal, ham, salt, carrot, turnip, onions, celery, leek, parsley, bay leaf, and ½ cup water.

  3. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the butter is covered with a white glaze.

  4. Add 6 quarts of water and the calf's head; let it simmer for 2.5 hours until tender.

  5. Remove the head, press it between two dishes, and strain the stock through a fine sieve into a basin.

Make the soup

  1. In another stewpan, melt ¼ pound of butter with thyme, basil, marjoram, and bay leaf until hot.

  2. Add 6 ounces of flour to form a roux; stir over high heat for a few minutes until white.

  3. Remove from heat and add the stock; stir until boiling.

  4. Skim off the fat and strain into another stewpan.

  5. Cut the head into 1-inch square pieces and add to the soup; season with cayenne pepper.

  6. When hot, stir in ⅓ cup of cream and serve in a tureen.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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, thick texture as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the stock when cooked with butter into a roux, giving the soup body.
Butter
Forms the roux base with flour and carries the herbs' aroma into the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, smoother mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Making the roux. Flour must be stirred in butter until it is cooked and white, not browned or lumpy. Cooking off the raw starch taste and dispersing the flour evenly lets the stock thicken smoothly when liquid is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, carrot, turnip, celery, leek, parsley, butter):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, turnip, celery, leek, parsley, 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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