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Soup

Imitation of Mock-turtle

A baked stew of veal, cow heels, and calf's feet flavored with spices, ketchup, wine, and mushroom powder, served with eggs and forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Imitation of Mock-turtle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the stock

  1. In a pan, combine the veal, cow heels or calf's feet, onions, cloves, peppercorns, allspice, mace, and sweet herbs.

  2. Cover with water and tie a thick paper over the pan.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 3 hours.

Prepare the meat

  1. Once cooled, remove the fat and cut the meat and feet into 1‑inch square pieces, discarding bones and coarse parts.

Finish and serve

  1. Warm the meat with walnut ketchup, mushroom ketchup, sherry or Madeira wine, mushroom powder, and the meat jelly.

  2. If needed, adjust seasoning before serving with hard-boiled eggs, forcemeat balls, a squeeze of lemon, and soy sauce.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Allspice + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Clove + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Gives body and gelatin to the stock as it cooks slowly.
Cow heels or calf's feet
Adds gelatin, which thickens the stock and gives it a rich, silky texture.
Sherry or madeira wine
Adds depth and a mellow, slightly sweet, fortified flavour to the soup.
Walnut ketchup
Contributes a dark, savoury, umami-rich flavour to the soup.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, earthy umami flavour to the soup.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add a mild, rich texture and substance as a garnish.

The step that matters

Baking the stock slowly under a sealed cover. A low, long, covered bake draws gelatin and flavour out of bones and feet without boiling hard. Too much heat or an open pan can cloud the stock and make it greasy or bitter.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, clove, allspice, walnut, ketchup, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, clove, allspice, walnut, ketchup, mushroom. 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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