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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made by simmering beef, veal, calf head, and tongue with vegetables and spices, then served with the head and tongue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Gently stew 4 pounds of beef in 1 gallon of water with carrots, onion, celery, herbs, mace, peppercorns, and salt until the meat is in fragments.

  2. Strain the broth and pour it over 3 pounds of veal in a pot.

  3. Simmer until the meat falls from the bones, being careful not to reduce the stock too much.

  4. Remove the brains from the calf's head, bone it, and stew the bones with the veal for richer stock.

  5. Strain the soup through a fine sieve into a clean pan and let it cool to remove the fat.

Cook the head

  1. Roll the head with the tongue inside, secure it with twine, and pour the soup over it.

  2. Bring the soup to a gentle boil, skim well, and simmer for 1 to 1¼ hours.

Serve

  1. Lift the head into a tureen, add the soup, and let it cool to prevent dark edges.

  2. Slice the head into quarter-inch slices and then dice.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin
Its collagen breaks down into gelatin, giving the stock body and a rich mouthfeel.
Veal knuckle or neck
Adds collagen and gelatin, thickening the stock and giving it a fuller body.
Calf's head
Its skin and bones release gelatin, and the meat becomes tender and soft in the soup.
Tongue
Cooks slowly until tender, giving the sliced garnish a soft, rich texture.
Onion
Softens and sweetens during simmering, adding savoury aroma to the stock.
Carrots
Release natural sugars and colour into the stock, adding gentle sweetness.

The step that matters

Bring to a gentle boil, skim well, and simmer. Vigorous boiling churns fat and proteins into the liquid, making the stock cloudy and greasy. Keeping it at a gentle simmer and skimming off the scum keeps it clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, celery, veal. 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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