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Turtle Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Scale the turtle until the skin is completely removed.

  2. Cut the turtle open where the upper and lower shells join and reserve the upper part for baking.

  3. Make a forcemeat with veal, anchovies, pepper, mace, nutmeg, salt, onions, parsley, marjoram, egg yolks, and lemon peel.

  4. Mince and incorporate the cleaned liver, lights, lungs, and bowels into the forcemeat, adding wine to taste.

  5. Stuff the fish in the deep shell with some forcemeat and form the rest into balls.

  6. Make a paste with flour and water and cover the shell to keep in the gravy while stewing.

  7. Add veal broth before baking to enhance the gravy.

  8. Cut the soft part of the turtle's shell and flesh into pieces and stew over a charcoal fire.

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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Nutmeg + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, white pepper, mace, nutmeg, parsley, marjoram, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, white pepper, mace, nutmeg, parsley, marjoram, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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