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Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf's head, beef, vegetables, and herbs, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Remove the brains from the calf's head and set aside.

  2. Wash the head in cold water for an hour.

  3. Place the head in a stewpan with 2 gallons of cold water and boil gently for 1 hour, skimming off the scum.

  4. Remove the head, let it cool, then cut the meat into 1-inch square pieces, leaving fat on the skin and cutting the tongue similarly.

Make the soup

  1. In a stockpot, melt 2 oz of butter and sauté the sliced onions until brown.

  2. Add 5 lb of coarse lean beef and pour in half of the broth from boiling the head.

  3. Boil and remove any scum.

  4. Add the diced carrots, turnips, chopped celery, cloves, eschalots, herbs, black pepper, allspice, and the bones and trimmings from the head.

  5. Pour in the remaining broth and let it stew gently for 4 hours.

  6. Strain 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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Turnip + carrottop 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
Provides the meat, fat, skin and tongue that give the soup its body and richness.
Coarse lean beef
Adds meaty flavour to the broth during the long stew.
Onions
Browned in butter first, adding sweetness and deep savoury flavour to the soup.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and aromatic flavour to the stewed broth.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and soft texture as they stew in the broth.
Celery
Adds savoury, aromatic flavour to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum rising during boiling is coagulated protein and impurities. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and prevents a muddy, off-flavoured soup during the long stew.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, turnip, carrot, celery, thyme, marjoram, basil):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, turnip, carrot, celery, thyme, marjoram, basil. 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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