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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from boiled calf's head, vegetables, ham, and stock, finished with roux, lemon, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 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 ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the head

  1. Combine the boiled calf's head, cold stock, and a little salt in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  3. Boil for 3–4 hours until the meat is tender.

  4. Remove the meat carefully.

  5. Press the meat between two dishes to cool.

  6. Return the bones to the pot with more salt and continue boiling.

Make the flavour base

  1. In a clean saucepan, fry the chopped ham, butter, herbs, carrot, turnip, parsnip, leeks, and onions studded with cloves for 20 minutes.

  2. Add 1 pint of cold stock to the saucepan and boil until reduced by half.

  3. Remove the bones from the first pot.

  4. Strain the contents of the second pot into the first pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in brown roux and let it boil until thickened like cream.

  2. Season with salt, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and ketchup if no mushrooms were used.

  3. Cut the reserved meat into 1.5‑inch squares and the tongue into cubes.

  4. Add them to the soup along with sherry or Madeira.

  5. Boil for a few minutes before serving.

  6. Serve with optional brain‑balls, egg‑balls, or quenelles, and lemon quarters on the side.

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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Supplies the gelatinous meat and bones that give the soup its body and rich texture.
Brown roux
Thickens the stock so it becomes creamy in texture.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the flavour base.
Sherry or madeira
Adds aromatic sweetness and a rounded, wine-based finish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich stock.

The step that matters

Reducing the flavour base stock. Boiling the stock down concentrates its flavour and body; reducing too little leaves the soup thin and weak, while the later roux needs a well-flavoured liquid to thicken properly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, carrot, turnip, parsnip, leek, onion. 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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