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Old-fashioned Mock Turtle

A savory soup made from a beef head, neck, ham, vegetables, herbs, and sherry, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Old-fashioned Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Remove the brain from the beef head.

  2. Wash the beef head.

  3. Soak the beef head well.

Make the stock

  1. In a large pot, combine the head with 9 quarts of cold water and bring to a gentle boil.

  2. Skim the surface clean.

  3. Boil for 1.5 hours.

  4. Remove the head.

  5. Add 8 pounds of lightly browned neck of beef, ham, onions, celery, carrots, sweet herbs, lemon rind, peppercorns, and salt to the pot.

  6. Stew gently for 7 to 8 hours.

  7. Strain the stock.

  8. Cool the stock to remove the fat.

Finish the soup

  1. Remove the skin and fat from the head, cutting it into strips or dice.

  2. In a large soup pot, combine 4 to 5 quarts of stock and bring to a boil.

  3. Thicken the stock with a mixture of 4 ounces of butter and 4 ounces of flour.

  4. Add mace and cayenne pepper, adjusting to taste.

  5. Stir in ½ pint of sherry and simmer for 1 to 1.5 hours, stirring often.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef head
Provides gelatin and rich meaty flavour as it simmers into the stock.
Neck of beef
Adds deep beefy flavour to the stock during the long stew.
Butter and flour
Flour and butter form a roux that thickens the stock into a silky body.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic sweetness that brightens the rich stock.
Onions, celery and carrots
Build the aromatic base that flavours the stock during the long stew.

The step that matters

Cool the stock to remove the fat. Fat that is not skimmed off after cooling makes the soup greasy and dulls its clean flavour, so the stock must be fully chilled before the fat is lifted away.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, ham, onion, celery, carrot, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, ham, onion, celery, carrot, flour. 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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