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Soup

Mock Turtle Soup

A hearty soup made from calf's head, beef, veal, vegetables, herbs, ham or anchovies, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 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

Prepare the head

  1. Scald the hair off the calf's head without skinning it.

  2. Boil the head for 30 minutes.

  3. Cut the boiled head into small square pieces.

Make the soup

  1. In a stew-pan, combine the head pieces with strong broth made from beef, veal, turnips, carrots, onions, and celery.

  2. Add sweet herbs, sage, ham or anchovies.

  3. Boil until the head is tender.

  4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  5. Season the soup with salt, white pepper, Cayenne pepper, Madeira wine, and lemon juice.

  6. Thicken the soup with flour and butter.

  7. Add cleaned pieces of the head, forced meat, and egg balls.

  8. Boil for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 and skin that give the soup its body and texture.
Gravy beef
Adds deep meaty flavour to the broth that the soup is built on.
Knuckle of veal
Contributes gelatin and body to the broth, giving it a richer mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the strained soup together with butter into a smoother, lightly body-rich liquid.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the seasoned soup.
Lemon juice
Brightens the rich broth with acidity that balances its heaviness.

The step that matters

Boil the head until tender before straining. The head must cook fully so its collagen softens and breaks down into gelatin; undercooked pieces stay tough and chewy, and the broth will lack body.

Swap the sage

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

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

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