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Mock Turtle or Calf's Head Soup

A hearty soup made from calf's head, veal, ham, potatoes, turnips, herbs, force-meat balls, Madeira, egg balls, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 688 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Mock Turtle or Calf's Head Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Clean, wash, and soak the calf's head.

  2. Place the calf's head in a pot with the veal and ham or bacon, covering with enough water.

  3. Boil slowly for 4 hours, skimming carefully until no more scum rises.

  4. Add the sliced potatoes, turnips, chopped herbs, pepper, and salt, and cook for 1 hour.

Make the force-meat balls

  1. Make 2 dozen small force-meat balls from minced veal and beef suet, seasoned with pepper, salt, herbs, lemon peel, nutmeg, and mace.

  2. Bind the force-meat balls with beaten egg yolk and flour, then fry them in butter.

Finish the soup

  1. Remove the head and other meat from the soup, cut the meat into small pieces, and return it to the soup.

  2. Stir in the Madeira, add the egg balls, and squeeze in the lemon juice.

  3. Let the soup boil gently again before serving.

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. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Turnip + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together367 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Gives the soup its body and rich gelatin from slow simmering.
Potatoes
Thicken the broth slightly and add body as they break down.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth.
Madeira
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished soup.
Egg balls
Add richness and a soft, tender texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth during the long boil. Scum rising from the meat contains impurities that cloud the broth and taint its flavour, so removing it steadily keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, turnip, parsley, marjoram, basil, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, turnip, parsley, marjoram, basil, 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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