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Canned Turtle Soup

A soup made with canned turtle, beef broth, ham, carrots, onions, parsley, egg yolks, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Canned Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, stir together the ham, butter, onion, parsley, and carrots.

  2. Add the beef soup and bring to a simmer.

  3. Mix the brown flour with a little water to make a paste, then stir it into the soup.

  4. Add the turtle and cook until heated through.

  5. Stir in the egg yolks.

  6. Season with salt, cayenne pepper, and wine to taste.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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

Brown flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries the flavour of the aromatics.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a smooth, thickened texture to the soup.
Turtle
Provides the main meat and character of the soup.

The step that matters

Mix the brown flour into a paste before stirring it into the soup. Flour added dry clumps and stays lumpy. Mixing it first with a little water lets the starch disperse evenly, so it thickens the soup smoothly when heated.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, butter, parsley, carrot, ham, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, butter, parsley, carrot, ham, egg. 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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