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Another Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf's head, beef and veal, onions, sage, butter, flour, lemon rind, pepper, allspice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Another Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head and broth

  1. Order a fine fat calf's head from the butcher a day or two in advance.

  2. Soak the head in spring water for 1 hour, then remove the brains for another use.

  3. Place the head in a large stewpan.

  4. Cover with cold water and add ½ gallon more.

  5. Bring to a boil, skimming off the scum, and boil for 1 hour.

  6. Remove the head and let it cool.

  7. Add 10 pounds of beef and veal to the broth.

  8. Once cool, cut the meat and tongue from the head into bite-sized pieces and set aside.

  9. Return the bones and trimmings to the broth.

  10. Cover and boil for 5 hours.

  11. Strain the broth.

  12. Cool any excess separately to keep the fat undisturbed.

Make the soup

  1. The next day, in a stewpan, fry 12 ounces of sliced onions and 4 ounces of chopped sage in ½ pound of butter over low heat for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the fat from the top of the broth.

  3. Mix the fat with ½ pound of flour.

  4. Stir this mixture into the onions and butter.

  5. Gradually add the broth until it reaches a cream-like thickness.

  6. Add the lemon rind, black pepper, allspice, and salt to taste.

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. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

Calf's head
Provides gelatin-rich meat and bones that give the broth body and a rich mouthfeel.
Beef and veal
Adds deep meaty flavour and gelatin to the broth during its long simmer.
Onions
Soften and sweeten slowly in butter, building a mild, savoury base for the soup.
Butter
Carries the sage and onion flavour and adds richness to the soup.
Flour
Mixed with the fat to form a roux that thickens the broth to a creamy consistency.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the broth to the roux. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour smooth and evenly dispersed, so the soup thickens without lumps.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, sage, butter, flour, lemon, 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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