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Old-fashioned Mock Turtle

A hearty soup made with calf head, beef neck, ham, vegetables, herbs, and a butter‑flour roux, finished with sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 and stock

  1. Remove the brain from the calf's head, wash it, and soak it well.

  2. Combine the head and 9 quarts of cold water in a large pot.

  3. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil and skim the surface.

  4. Boil for 1.5 hours.

  5. Remove the head and add the browned neck of beef, ham, onions, celery, carrots, savory herbs, lemon rind, peppercorns, and salt.

  6. Stew gently for 6-7 hours.

  7. Strain the stock and cool it to remove the fat.

Prepare the meat

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

  2. Carve the tongue into strips or dice.

Thicken and finish

  1. Bring the stock to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Mix 4 ounces of butter with 4 ounces of flour to thicken the stock.

  3. Add the mace and cayenne pepper, adjusting to taste.

  4. Stir in the sherry and simmer for 1-2 minutes.

  5. Add the head back into the pot.

  6. Let it stew gently for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1.5 hours, stirring often.

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

Calf's head
Provides the gelatinous meat, skin and fat that give the soup its body and richness.
Neck of beef
Adds deep beef flavour to the stock during the long stew.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the stock into a smooth, velvety soup.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic sweetness that brighten the rich stock.

The step that matters

Cooling and skimming the stock before thickening. Fat left in the stock would float on the surface and make the soup greasy, and cooling lets it solidify so it can be removed cleanly before the roux is added.

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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