Skip to main content
Main

Mock Turtle

A stew made from calf's head, stock, flour, shallots, herbs, mushroom ketchup, wine, force-meat balls, egg balls, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Mock Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Half boil the cleaned calf's head, then cut the meat into small square pieces.

  2. Break the bones and return them to a stew pan with the stock.

Simmer the soup

  1. Dredge in flour, then add the fried shallots, pepper, parsley, tarragon, mushroom ketchup, and white wine.

  2. Simmer gently until the meat is soft and tender.

  3. Add the force-meat balls and egg balls shortly before serving.

  4. Finish with the juice of a lemon for added flavor.

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. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

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.
Flour
Dredging the meat thickens the soup slightly as it simmers.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the simmering broth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savory broth.

The step that matters

Simmering until the meat is tender. Simmering gently keeps the broth clear and lets collagen in the head and bones slowly break down into gelatin. Boiling hard would toughen the meat and cloud the soup.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, flour, shallot, pepper, parsley, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, flour, shallot, pepper, parsley, mushroom. 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

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes