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Mock Turtle Soup

A hearty soup made from calf's head, ham knuckle, veal bone, and vegetables, thickened with browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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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

Prepare the stock

  1. Clean the calf's head and place it in cold water with the ham knuckle, veal bone, cold cooked meat, tomatoes, onions, carrot, celery, allspice, black pepper, and cloves.

  2. Boil until the calf's head is cooked, then remove it and separate the meat from the bones, cutting it into small pieces.

  3. Thicken the soup with browned flour and boil for an additional two hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup and return it to a moderate heat.

  2. Chop the hard boiled eggs and lemon into small pieces.

  3. Add the chopped eggs, lemon, calf's head meat, salt, and wine or Worcestershire sauce to the soup.

  4. Serve very hot.

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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  5. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides the meat and gelatin that give the soup its body and richness.
Veal bone
Releases gelatin and flavour into the stock during long simmering.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup and adds a toasted, deeper colour and flavour.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and savoury depth to the stock.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and a mild, rich texture to the finished soup.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich stock.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with browned flour and boil for an additional two hours. Browned flour must be fully mixed in to avoid lumps, and a long gentle boil lets its starch swell and cook out any raw flour taste. Keeping the simmer steady prevents scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the allspice

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, meat, tomato, onion, carrot, celery. 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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