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Clear Mock Turtle Soup

A clear soup made from calf's head, vegetables, herbs, and clarified with beef, veal, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme 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 ↓

Clear Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Soak the calf's head in salt water for 24 hours, changing the water frequently.

  2. Bone the head, tie the meat in a thin cloth, and break the bones into small pieces.

  3. Place the bones in a stewpan, cover with cold water, add 2 teaspoons of salt, bring to a boil, then strain and rinse in cold water.

Make the stock

  1. Return the meat and bones to the stewpan, add the stock and 1 teaspoon of salt, bring to a boil, and skim well.

  2. Add the prepared vegetables, herbs, peppercorns, cloves, and mace. Cover and cook slowly for about 3 hours.

  3. Strain the soup, set the meat aside, and let the stock cool to remove the fat.

Clarify and finish

  1. Clarify the stock with the chopped beef, veal, and egg.

  2. Return the clarified stock to the saucepan, add sherry (if using), lemon juice, and some meat from the head cut into small pieces.

  3. Season to taste, bring to a boil, and serve.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Basil + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides gelatin and rich meaty body that gives the soup its character.
Lean beef
Adds meaty flavor to the stock and, with the egg, clarifies it when clarified.
Lean veal
Adds mild meaty flavor and helps clarify the stock along with the beef and egg.
Egg
Its white collects fine particles as it cooks, clearing the stock during clarification.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a mellow sweetness and depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Clarifying the stock. Stirring the beef, veal and egg into the stock and then heating gently lets the egg white trap fine particles that cloud the liquid. If the stock is boiled hard or stirred after the egg sets, the particles disperse and the soup stays cloudy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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