Skip to main content
Main

Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from beef, veal, calf head, and tongue, simmered with carrots, onion, celery, herbs, mace, peppercorns, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Make the beef stock

  1. Stew the beef with carrots, onion, celery, herbs, mace, peppercorns, and salt until the meat is in fragments.

  2. Strain the broth.

  3. Pour the strained broth cold over the veal.

  4. Simmer until the flesh falls from the bones.

  5. Stew the bones with the veal to enrich the stock.

Prepare the calf's head

  1. Remove the brains from the calf's head.

  2. Bone the calf's head completely.

  3. Wrap the head lightly, securing it with tape or twine.

  4. Boil the bones with the head and tongue later.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain the soup through a fine sieve into a clean pan.

  2. Let the soup cool to remove the fat.

  3. Pour the soup over the wrapped head.

  4. Bring the soup to a gentle boil.

  5. Skim the soup well.

  6. Simmer for 1 to 1¼ hours.

  7. Lift the head into a deep pan or tureen.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin or neck
Breaks down into fragments during stewing, giving the stock its body and rich beefy flavour.
Veal knuckle or neck
Its bones and flesh release gelatin, giving the stock body and a silky mouthfeel.
Calf's head
Adds gelatin-rich skin and meat that thicken the soup and give it its characteristic texture.
Tongue
Adds tender, rich meat that enriches the soup's flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Skim the soup well. Fat and fine impurities rise to the surface as the soup simmers. Removing them keeps the broth clear and prevents it from tasting greasy.

Swap the mace

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

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

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

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes