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Old-pasiiioned Mock Turtle

A hearty soup made from calf's head, beef neck, ham, vegetables, herbs, and sherry, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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-pasiiioned Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine calf's head and cold water in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil and skim off impurities.

  3. Boil the head for 1.5 hours.

  4. Remove the head.

  5. Add browned neck of beef, ham, onions, celery, carrots, herbs, lemon rind, peppercorns, salt, and any bones from the head.

  6. Stew the mixture gently for 6-7 hours.

  7. Strain the stock and cool it to solidify the fat on top for easy removal.

Prepare the head and tongue

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

  2. Carve the tongue into strips or dice.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a large pot, bring the stock to a boil.

  2. Thicken it with a mixture of butter, flour, mace, and cayenne.

  3. Stir in the sherry and simmer for 1-1.5 hours with the head added. Stir 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
Supplies gelatinous body and richness, giving the soup its characteristic texture when simmered.
Neck of beef
Adds deep beefy flavour and body to the stock during the long gentle stew.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the stock into a smooth, velvety soup.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic sweetness that brightens the finished soup.
Cayenne pepper
Provides gentle heat that sharpens the savoury flavours of the soup.

The step that matters

Thickening the stock. Flour must be cooked into the butter and whisked into hot stock without lumps; adding it raw or to a stock that is not hot causes clumping and a floury taste.

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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