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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf head, brains, veal force balls, onions, flour, mace, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Scrape and scald the calf's head, then crack it open and remove the brains.

  2. Soak the head in salted water overnight.

  3. Boil the head in 2 gallons of water until the bones can be removed.

  4. Cut the head and tongue into small pieces.

Make the soup

  1. Prepare force balls from veal and brown them in butter.

  2. In a separate pan, brown the flour and add chopped onions, mace, pepper, and salt.

  3. Strain the soup, then bring it to a boil, adding the brains and force balls.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 gelatinous meat and bones that give the soup its body and richness.
Browned flour
Thickens the soup and adds a toasted, nutty color and flavor.
Force balls
Add savory veal flavor and a tender, meaty texture to the soup.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth as they cook into the broth.

The step that matters

Boiling the head until the bones can be removed. Simmering gently extracts collagen and flavor from the bones and connective tissue while keeping the meat tender. Boiling too hard can toughen the meat and cloud the broth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, onion, pepper, butter. 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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