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Soup

Old-fashioned Mock Turtle

A hearty soup made from a cleaned head, beef neck, ham, vegetables, herbs, lemon rind, spices, sherry, and thickened with butter and flour.

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

Old-fashioned Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Remove the brain from the head and wash it well.

  2. Soak the head, then pour in 9 quarts of cold water and bring to a gentle boil.

  3. Skim the surface clean and boil for 1.5 hours.

  4. Remove the head and add 8 pounds of lightly browned neck of beef, ham, onions, celery, carrots, sweet herbs, lemon rind, peppercorns, and salt to the broth.

Make the stock

  1. Stew gently for 7-8 hours.

  2. Strain the stock and cool it to remove the fat easily.

  3. Remove the skin and fat from the head, cutting into strips.

  4. Cut the tongue into strips or dice.

Finish the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine 4-5 quarts of stock and bring to a boil.

  2. Thicken with a mixture of 4 ounces of butter and 4 ounces of flour, along with mace and cayenne.

  3. Stir in ½ pint of sherry and simmer for 1-2 minutes.

  4. Add the head and stew gently for 1¼ to 1½ hours, stirring often to remove scum.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the stock with the butter into a smooth, body-rich soup.
Butter
Enriches the soup and combines with flour to form the thickening roux.
Neck of beef
Releases gelatin and flavour into the stock during long, gentle stewing.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skimming and stirring the head at the end. Scum rises continuously during simmering and can cloud the soup and taste bitter if left on the surface, so it must be skimmed off and the pot stirred often while the head stews.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, ham, onion, celery, carrot, flour. 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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