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Mock Turtle

A hearty soup made from calf head, veal gravy, onions, spices, anchovies, and force-meat balls, finished with egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Scald and wash the calf's head.

  2. Boil the calf's head for 30 minutes.

  3. Skin the head.

  4. Remove the tongue.

Make the stock

  1. In a pot, combine the tongue, skin, onions, cloves, mace, nutmeg, sweet herbs, and anchovies with the veal gravy.

  2. Stew the mixture until tender.

  3. Remove the meat and cut it into 2-inch square pieces, including the skinned tongue.

  4. Strain the cooking liquid.

Make the soup and serve

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the strained liquid and white wine, stirring continuously.

  4. Season to taste.

  5. Add the force-meat balls and yolks of eggs.

  6. Let the mixture stew gently for 1 hour.

  7. If the mixture is too thick, add some broth.

  8. Serve hot in a tureen.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides the meat and gelatinous body of the soup once cooked and cut into pieces.
Butter
Melted with flour to form a roux that thickens the soup and adds richness.
Flour
Combined with melted butter to form a roux that thickens the strained liquid.
White wine
Added to the strained liquid, contributing acidity and a light aromatic flavor.
Yolks of eggs
Added near the end to enrich the soup and give it a richer, silkier body.

The step that matters

Stirring in the strained liquid and wine. Adding liquid gradually while stirring continuously keeps the flour-butter roux smooth, preventing lumps and ensuring the soup thickens evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, clove, mace, nutmeg, butter, flour, white wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, clove, mace, nutmeg, butter, flour, white wine. 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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