Skip to main content
Main

Listers Mock Mock Turtle

A stew of beef, cow heel, herbs, and spices simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 780 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Listers Mock Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line the bottom of a 5‑pint stew pan with bacon or ham.

  2. Add beef, cow heel, carrot rind, lemon‑thyme, winter savory, parsley, basil, and shallots.

  3. Tie the herbs and spices in a bundle with mace and add to the pan.

  4. Insert the onion with cloves, allspice, and black pepper.

  5. Pour in cold water, cover, and simmer on low for 15 minutes.

Simmer and serve

  1. Remove the cover, brown the meat, then fill the pan with boiling water.

  2. Let it simmer gently for 2 hours, or until the meat is just tender.

  3. Cut the meat into bite‑sized pieces and add to the soup.

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. Thyme + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  5. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean gravy beef
Provides meat flavour and, after long simmering, tender pieces for the soup.
Cow heel
Adds gelatin from connective tissue, giving the broth body and a rich mouthfeel.
Bacon or ham
Adds smoky, salty fat that flavours the broth and browns the base of the pan.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and savoury depth as it softens and releases flavour into the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, not at a boil. A gentle simmer lets collagen from the cow heel and beef break down into gelatin while keeping the broth clear. A rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and toughens the meat.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes