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Mock Turtle Soup

A soup made from calf's head, vegetables, herbs, and a brown sauce, served with lemon slices, forcemeat balls, and egg balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mock Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Wash, scrape, and clean the calf's head.

  2. Soak the calf's head in cold water for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the brains and tongue from the head.

  4. Place the head in a kettle, skin side up, and add the cold water.

Simmer the stock

  1. Heat slowly to boiling point. Skim carefully.

  2. Simmer until the meat is tender, about 2 hours. Add salt at the end of the first hour.

  3. Remove the head. Slip the meat from the bones. Return the bones to the kettle.

  4. Add seasonings and vegetables. Simmer until the liquid is reduced to 2 quarts.

  5. Strain the soup. When cool, remove the fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Make a brown sauce with butter, flour, and brown stock. Add the head stock and 1 cup of face meat cut into 4‑inch cubes.

  2. Place thin slices of lemon, forcemeat balls, and egg balls in a tureen. Pour over the hot soup. Serve immediately.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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 gelatine that give the soup its body and richness.
Butter
Fat for the brown sauce, adding richness and helping it brown with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the brown sauce so it lends body to the finished soup.
Brown stock
Adds savoury depth to the brown sauce and the finished soup.
Lemon
Adds acidity and brightness that cut through the rich, fatty broth.

The step that matters

Skim carefully as the water heats. Proteins and fat rise and coagulate as the liquid heats to a boil. Removing them early keeps the stock clear and free of greasy scum.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, pepper, butter, allspice, flour, cinnamon):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, pepper, butter, allspice, flour, cinnamon. 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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