Skip to main content
Main

Mock Turtle Soup, of Calf's Head

A hearty soup made from calf's head, ham, herbs, and broth, finished with Madeira or sherry and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup, of Calf's Head

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the calf's head

  1. Scald and clean the calf's head.

  2. Remove the brain.

  3. Tie the head in a cloth.

  4. Boil for 1 hour until the meat separates from the bone.

  5. Remove the head.

  6. Save the broth.

  7. Cut the meat into small pieces.

  8. Place the meat in cold water to cool.

  9. Combine the meat with some of the reserved broth and boil until tender.

  10. Set the mixture aside.

Make the soup

  1. Melt butter.

  2. Add diced ham.

  3. Add fine herbs.

  4. Add parsley.

  5. Add onion.

  6. Pour in about 1 pint of broth.

  7. Simmer for 2 hours.

  8. Dredge the mixture in a small amount of flour.

  9. Add the remaining broth and the Madeira or sherry.

  10. Let it stew quietly for 10 minutes.

  11. Rub the mixture through a medium sieve.

  12. Add the calf's head pieces.

  13. Season with cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, lemon juice, pounded mace (if using), and sugar.

  14. Add the prepared force-meat balls.

Serve

  1. Serve hot after 5 minutes.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 the meat and gelatin that give the soup its body and rich texture.
Lean ham
Adds savoury depth and a salty, meaty flavour to the base.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly as it cooks, giving a smoother body.
Madeira or sherry
Adds wine acidity and aromatic richness that rounds out the broth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich broth and balances its flavour.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savoury aromatic base as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Dredge the mixture in a small amount of flour. Too much flour leaves lumps or a pasty taste, while too little gives no thickening. Adding it to the fat-and-onion base first lets it cook out, which avoids raw flour flavour and helps the soup thicken smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, parsley, flour, sherry, pepper, lemon. 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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipes