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Soup

Mock-turtle

A hearty soup made with calf's head, veal, pickled pork, vegetables, herbs, and forcemeat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Mock-turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean the calf's head in hot water, squeezing to remove blood.

  2. Soak in cold water for 1 hour.

Make the stock

  1. Place the head in a pot with warm water, veal, pickled pork, roasted onions, lemon rind, pot-herbs, carrots, and celery.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the head and pork.

  4. Strip the skin from the head, remove the brain, tongue, and eye.

  5. Break the bones and return them to the soup.

  6. Boil for an additional 2 hours.

  7. Make forcemeat balls from the brains and slice the tongue.

Thicken and finish

  1. Melt butter in a separate pan.

  2. Sauté sliced onions with basil, marjoram, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, mace, and allspice.

  3. Add flour to the sautéed mixture to thicken the soup.

  4. Gradually stir in the boiling stock to avoid lumps.

  5. Let it boil gently for 1 hour.

  6. Strain through a tammy.

  7. Return the strained soup to the heat.

  8. Add the meat.

  9. Season to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling in the hot stock, giving it body.
Calf's head
Releases gelatin and body into the stock as it simmers for hours.
Veal
Adds meaty flavour and gelatin to the stock during the long simmer.
Pickled pork
Contributes salty, savoury fat and depth of flavour to the stock.
Onions
Sautéed to build a sweet, aromatic base for the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the boiling stock gradually. Adding hot stock slowly to the flour-and-butter mixture while stirring keeps starch granules separated, so the soup thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, onion, clove, carrot, celery, butter):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, onion, clove, carrot, celery, butter. 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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