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Turtle Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine veal broth, onion, sweet herbs, and beaten mace. Stew for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Thicken the broth with flour and butter, then add Madeira. Stew for another 30 minutes.

  4. Season with salt and Cayenne pepper to taste.

  5. Prepare the callipee by filling it with force-meat seasoned with salt, Cayenne pepper, sweet herbs, and finely chopped shallot. Add a little Madeira.

  6. Seal the edges with paste and bake for 1.5 hours.

  7. For the entrails and maw, place them in a stewpan with a little veal broth, sweet herbs, and beaten mace. Thicken with butter and flour, and stew gently for 30 minutes.

  8. Season with Cayenne pepper and salt. Beat the yolks of eggs with cream, add to the mixture, and stir until it boils.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, pepper, flour, butter, egg, cream):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, pepper, flour, butter, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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