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Old-fasiitoned Mock Turtle

A savory soup made with beef neck, ham, onions, herbs, lemon, and a butter‑flour roux, finished with sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Old-fasiitoned Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Remove the brain and wash the head.

  2. Pour in 9 quarts of cold water and bring to a gentle boil.

  3. Skim the surface clean and boil for 1.5 hours.

  4. Remove the head and add 8 pounds of browned neck of beef, ham, onions, herbs, lemon, peppercorns, and salt.

Simmer and strain

  1. Stew gently for 7 to 8 hours, then strain the stock and cool it to remove the fat easily.

Finish the soup

  1. Remove the skin and fat from the head, cutting it into strips or dice.

  2. Add the meat to the stock.

  3. Thicken the stock with 4 ounces of butter mixed with 4 ounces of flour, mace, and cayenne.

  4. Stir in ½ pint of sherry and simmer for 1-2 minutes.

  5. Skim off any scum before serving.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Neck of beef
Gives the stock its meaty body and rich, savory flavor during long simmering.
Flour
Its starch thickens the stock once it is cooked with the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the stock as a thickener.
Ham
Adds a salty, smoky savoury depth to the stock.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a touch of acidity to finish the soup.

The step that matters

Stew gently, then cool the stock before skimming fat. A gentle simmer keeps the stock clear instead of cloudy from vigorous boiling. Cooling the strained stock lets the fat solidify on top, so it can be lifted off cleanly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, ham, onion, lemon, flour, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, ham, onion, lemon, flour, pepper. 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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