Skip to main content
Soup

Potage Tortue a LA Frangaise —

A French mock turtle soup made from calf's head, simmered with Madeira, sauce Espagnole, vegetables and herbs, and served with fowl quenelles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Potage Tortue a LA Frangaise —

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Prepare the calf's head by removing the ears and fleshy parts.

  2. Stew the calf's head.

  3. Drain the calf's head on a baking sheet.

  4. Place a large stewpan cover on the head.

  5. Weigh the stewpan cover down with 10 pounds until the head is cold.

  6. Cut the head into 1-inch rounds.

  7. Remove any adhering flesh or fat from the rounds.

Make the soup

  1. In a sauté pan, combine the prepared head, combs, kidneys, and mushrooms with ½ pint of Madeira wine.

  2. Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the mixture to well-made sauce Espagnole.

  4. In a stewpan, combine carrots, onions, mushrooms, parsley, bay leaf, thyme, basil, rosemary, marjoram, ham, anchovies, Cayenne pepper, allspice, cloves, mace, 1 ladleful of consommé, and ½ pint of Madeira wine.

  5. Simmer for 1 hour.

  6. Rub the essence through a tammy and add it to the soup.

  7. Boil the soup for 15 minutes.

  8. Skim off any foam.

Serve

  1. Pour the soup into a tureen with small quenelles of fowl.

  2. Add chopped blanched parsley to half of the soup and finely chopped mushrooms to the other half.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides gelatin and body, giving the soup its rich, thick texture once simmered.
Sauce espagnole
Forms the brown, rich base that gives the soup its body and depth of flavour.
Madeira wine
Adds acidity and aromatic sweetness, deepening the flavour of the meat and sauce.
Cocks' kidneys
Contribute a firm, tender texture and a mild, rich meaty flavour.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth, rounding out the broth without a distinctly fishy taste.
Lean ham
Adds salty, savoury meat flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Cooling the calf's head under weight. Pressing the head while it cools lets the gelatin set and the meat firm, so the rounds hold their shape when cut and simmered rather than falling apart.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, madeira wine, sauce, carrot, parsley, thyme, basil):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, madeira wine, sauce, carrot, parsley, thyme, basil. 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

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes