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Soup

Mock-turtle

A hearty soup made from calf head, veal, pickled pork, vegetables, herbs, and a thickened broth with Madeira or sherry.

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 ↓

Mock-turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head and stock

  1. Clean the calf's head in hot water, squeezing to remove blood, then soak in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Place the head in 6 quarts of warm water with veal, pickled pork, onion, lemon rind, pot-herbs, carrots, and celery. Boil for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the head and pork.

  4. Strip the skin from the head, and take out the brain, tongue, and eye.

  5. Break the bones and return them to the soup, boiling for an additional 2 hours.

  6. Make forcemeat balls from the brains, slice the tongue, and mince the eye's remaining part.

  7. Cut the skin into pieces slightly over an inch square.

Make the thickened soup

  1. In a separate pan, melt butter and sauté sliced onions with basil, marjoram, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, mace, and allspice until soft.

  2. Add flour to the sautéed mixture to thicken the soup.

  3. Gradually stir in the boiling stock to avoid lumps.

  4. Boil gently for 1 hour.

  5. Strain the soup through a tammy.

Finish and serve

  1. Return to heat, and add the cooked meat.

  2. Season with salt, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and stir in Madeira or sherry.

  3. Serve with halved lemons on the side.

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. Lemon + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,823 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Carrot + basiltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Celery + basiltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's head
Provides gelatin and body, giving the soup its rich, thick texture as it simmers.
Veal
Adds meaty flavor and gelatin to the stock during the long simmer.
Pickled pork
Contributes fat and savory depth to the stock.
Flour
Thickens the soup by swelling with the hot stock and forming a smooth body.
Madeira or sherry
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the finished soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich stock.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the boiling stock. Adding stock slowly to the flour and butter mixture while stirring keeps the starch dispersed, so the soup thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, lemon, carrot, celery, butter, basil):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, lemon, carrot, celery, butter, basil. 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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