Skip to main content

Mock Turtle-Soup

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turbot and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 248 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mock Turtle-Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare the fish (turbot, oyster, or lobster) and set aside.

  2. Slice the cucumber thickly.

  3. Arrange the fish and cucumber on the table or sideboard.

  4. Serve with sauces and wines as part of the course.

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. Turbot + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together248 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Turbot + lobstertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Fennel + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together126 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Turbot + oystertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Swap the fennel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turbot, oyster, lobster, sauce, cucumber):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turbot, oyster, lobster, sauce, cucumber. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesMock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipes