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Mock Turtle Soup

A hearty soup made with calf head, ham or bacon, Madeira wine, lemon, and hard‑boiled egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Split the scalded calf's head down the middle and remove the brains.

  2. Boil the head for 15 minutes, then place it in cold water and remove any scum or blood.

  3. Take the meat from the bones in large pieces and cut into 1-inch squares.

Make the soup

  1. In a large, well-tinned copper stewpan, melt the butter over a clear fire.

  2. Gradually mix in the flour, stirring continuously until it turns light brown.

  3. Add the chopped onion and sweet herbs to the pan with the meat.

  4. Strain the broth from the scalded head and mix it with the meat and herbs until covered.

  5. Cook over heat, stirring until it boils, and remove any scum or fat.

  6. Season with pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper, then simmer gently for 30 minutes or until tender.

  7. Add the Madeira wine and boil for 5 minutes.

  8. Adjust seasoning to taste, then add lemon juice just before serving.

  9. Include the tongue and ham or bacon in the soup, but remove before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve with hard-boiled egg yolks for garnish.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Butter
Melted with the flour to form a roux that thickens the soup and adds richness.
Flour
Cooked in the butter to form a roux that thickens the soup.
Calf's head
Provides the meat and broth that form the body of the soup.
Madeira wine
Adds depth and sweetness as it boils into the soup.
Lean ham or bacon
Adds savoury, smoky flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Browning the flour roux. Stirring the butter and flour continuously keeps the roux from scorching and lumping, and cooking it until light brown thickens the soup while adding a nutty flavour.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, madeira wine, lemon, egg, ham. 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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