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Clear Turtle Soup

A clear soup made from turtle meat, beef, fowl, vegetables, herbs, and Madeira wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Clear Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Soak the turtle meat in cold water for 24 hours.

  2. Cut the beef hough and fowl into pieces.

  3. In a stock pot, combine the meats with cold water.

  4. Add carrots, onions, celery, cloves, mace, and peppercorns.

  5. Boil gently for 8 hours.

  6. Remove turtle pieces, wash, and set aside.

  7. Strain the stock and let it cool overnight.

  8. Remove fat from the stock and mince the lean beef.

Clarify and finish

  1. Mix minced beef with the stock and add eggs, herbs, and mushrooms.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let infuse for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain through a cloth, add turtle pieces, and season with salt, cayenne, lemon juice, and Madeira wine.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites and shells bind the minced beef, collecting particles so the stock clears.
Lean beef
Minced and simmered with the stock, it adds meaty flavour and helps clarify the broth.
Turtle meat
Dried and soaked, it supplies the characteristic rich, gelatinous texture of the soup.
Beef hough
Long simmering draws collagen and gelatin from the bone and meat, giving body to the stock.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and a rounded, aromatic depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Clarifying the stock with minced beef and eggs. Heating the mixture gently lets the egg and minced beef form a raft that traps fine particles. Boiling too vigorously breaks up the raft and leaves the soup cloudy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, beef, carrot, onion, celery, clove, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, beef, carrot, onion, celery, clove, 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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