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Imitation of Mock-turtle

A stew of veal, cow heels, and calf's feet flavored with spices, ketchup, sherry, and mushroom powder, served with eggs and forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Imitation of Mock-turtle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stock

  1. In a pan, combine the veal, cow heels or calf's feet, onions, cloves, pepper, allspice, mace, and sweet herbs.

  2. Cover with water and tie a thick paper over the pan.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 3 hours.

Make the stew and serve

  1. Once cooled, remove the fat and cut the meat and feet into ½ inch square pieces.

  2. Remove bones and coarse parts, then warm the meat with walnut ketchup, mushroom ketchup, sherry or Madeira, mushroom powder, and meat jelly.

  3. Adjust seasoning if needed, and serve with hard-boiled eggs, forcemeat balls, a squeeze of lemon, and soy sauce.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Provides collagen and gelatin that give the stew body and a jellied texture.
Cow heels or calf's feet
Release gelatin during long slow baking, thickening the stew and giving it a silky mouthfeel.
Walnut ketchup
Adds a dark, savoury, umami-rich flavour that mimics the depth of turtle meat.
Mushroom ketchup
Contributes concentrated savoury umami flavour that deepens the stew.
Sherry or madeira wine
Adds acidity and aromatic richness that balance the fatty, gelatinous meat.

The step that matters

Remove the fat after cooling. Fat rises and sets on top as the stock cools. Skimming it off before reheating keeps the stew clean-tasting and prevents a greasy mouthfeel.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, clove, pepper, allspice, mace, walnut, ketchup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, clove, pepper, allspice, mace, walnut, ketchup. 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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