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Soup

Old-fashioned Mock Turtle

A rich soup made from calf head, beef neck, ham, vegetables, and spices, 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 and stock

  1. Remove the brain from the calf's head, wash, and soak it well.

  2. In a large pot, combine the head and 9 quarts of cold water. Bring to a gentle boil and skim off any impurities.

  3. Boil the head for 1.5 hours, then remove it from the pot.

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

  5. Stew gently for 6-7 hours, then strain the stock and cool it to solidify the fat on top.

Thicken and finish

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

  2. Return 4-5 quarts of stock to the pot and thicken it with 4 ounces of butter mixed with 4 ounces of flour.

  3. Add mace, cayenne, and sherry, stirring until simmering for 1-2 minutes.

  4. Add the head back to the pot and stew gently for 1.25 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

Calf's head
Provides gelatin-rich meat and skin that thicken the soup as it stews.
Neck of beef
Adds deep meaty flavour to the stock during the long, gentle stew.
Flour
Thickens the stock with butter into a smooth, body-giving roux.
Butter
Enriches the thickened soup and carries flavour through the roux.
Onions
Build savoury sweetness and aroma in the stock as they cook down.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to finish the soup.

The step that matters

Thickening the stock with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and stirred into simmering stock so it dissolves smoothly without lumps. Adding it raw or too fast clumps it, leaving the soup grainy and unevenly thickened.

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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