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Imitation Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made with brown stock, tarragon, flour, butter, and forcemeat balls, finished with a savoury custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,399 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Imitation Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Melt the butter in a pot over medium heat.

  2. Mix in the flour until it turns a rich brown.

  3. Add the brown stock.

  4. Bring to a boil.

  5. Simmer for 10 minutes.

  6. Season with salt, pepper, and vinegar.

Make the forcemeat balls

  1. Mix the forcemeat ingredients together.

  2. Form into small marble-sized balls.

  3. Fry the balls until brown.

Make and finish the custard

  1. Beat the egg and milk together.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  3. Strain into a buttered jar.

  4. Steam gently until firm.

  5. Cut the custard into small blocks.

  6. Add the custard blocks to the soup before serving.

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. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the soup.
Flour
Browned in butter to make a roux that thickens the soup and adds colour.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and is used to brown the flour and fry the forcemeat balls.
Egg
Sets when steamed, giving the savoury custard its firm texture.
Bread crumbs
Bind the forcemeat mixture so the balls hold their shape.

The step that matters

Steaming the custard gently until firm. Egg custard proteins set at gentle heat; high heat or boiling makes the custard curdle, pocked and rubbery instead of smooth and firm.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, pepper, vinegar, bread, egg, milk):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper, vinegar, bread, egg, milk. 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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