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Mock-turtle Soup

A thickened soup made with broth, flour, potato flour, milk or water, and flavored with shrimp or anchovy essence, vinegar or lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shrimp and lobster work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 403 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Mock-turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the soup until hot.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and potato flour with the milk or water until smooth.

  3. Stir the mixture into the boiling soup until thickened.

  4. Add the essence of shrimps or anchovies, vinegar or lemon juice, and stir well.

Finish and serve

  1. If using, stir in the egg yolk after thickening.

  2. For a richer soup, add the preserved lobster and let it sit in the hot soup for a few minutes.

  3. If desired, stir in a pinch of curry powder.

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. Shrimp + lobstertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together403 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Potato + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour and potato flour
Thickens the soup as the starch swells in the hot liquid, giving it body.
Egg yolk
Enriches the soup and thickens it slightly when stirred in off the heat.
Preserved lobster
Adds seafood flavour and a richer, more substantial character to the soup.
Essence of shrimps or anchovies
Adds a concentrated savoury, seafood flavour to the broth.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour mixture into the boiling soup. Starch must be fully smooth before it goes in, or it clumps. Adding it to boiling liquid and stirring well lets the starch swell evenly and thicken the soup without lumps.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, shrimp, vinegar, egg, lobster):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, shrimp, vinegar, egg, lobster. 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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