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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf head, butter, flour, onion, herbs, broth, spices, Madeira wine, lemon, and optional ham or bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Split the scalded calf's head down the middle.

  2. Remove the brains.

  3. Boil the head for 15 minutes.

  4. Place the head in cold water.

  5. Remove any scum or blood.

  6. Take the meat from the bones in large pieces.

  7. Cut the meat into 1-inch squares.

Make the roux

  1. Melt the butter over a clear fire in a large, dry, tinned copper stewpan.

  2. Gradually mix in the flour.

  3. Stir quickly until it turns a light brown.

  4. Add the chopped onion and herbs to the pan with the meat.

  5. Strain the broth from the scalded head.

  6. Mix the broth with the meat and herbs until covered.

Simmer and finish

  1. Cook over heat, stirring until it boils.

  2. Remove any scum or fat.

  3. Season with pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Let it simmer gently for 30 minutes or until tender.

  5. Add the Madeira wine.

  6. Boil for 5 minutes.

  7. Adjust seasoning to taste.

  8. Add the juice of a lemon.

  9. Garnish with hard-boiled egg yolks.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 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).

Butter and flour 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

What each ingredient does

Calves head
Provides the main meat and gelatin that give the soup its body and texture.
Butter
Carries the flour in the roux, adding richness and a nutty flavour as it browns.
Flour
Thickens the broth when cooked with butter into a roux, giving the soup body.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth of aroma near the end of cooking.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, heavy flavour of the soup.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Used as a garnish, adding a mild, creamy richness to each serving.

The step that matters

Browning the roux. Stirring the butter and flour until light brown thickens the soup and builds flavour. Stop too early and the soup stays pasty and bland; take it too far and it turns bitter and dark.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, madeira wine, lemon, egg, ham):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, madeira wine, lemon, egg, ham. 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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