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Mock-turtle Soup

A soup made from calf head, brains, bacon, herbs, Madeira wine, and forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mock-turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean and wash the calf's head, then split it in two and save the brains.

  2. Boil the head in plenty of water until tender.

Make the soup

  1. In a stew pan, fry the bacon, parsley, thyme, leeks, cloves, and black pepper until browned.

  2. Add the water from boiling the head to the stew pan.

  3. Cut the meat from the head into neat square pieces and add to the soup.

  4. Stir in the Madeira wine, lemon slices, Cayenne pepper, and salt to taste.

  5. Let it simmer gently for two hours, then skim it clear and serve.

Make the forcemeat

  1. For the forcemeat, place the brains in a stew pan, pour hot water over them, and heat for a few minutes.

  2. Chop the brains finely with parsley, salt, pepper, flour, butter, and the beaten egg.

  3. Form small balls and drop them into the soup fifteen minutes before serving.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 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 tender meat that forms the body of the soup.
Brains
Bound with egg and flour, they form the delicate forcemeat balls.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savory depth when fried with the aromatics at the start.
Egg
Binds the chopped brains into forcemeat balls that hold their shape.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
Leeks
Contribute mild onion-like sweetness to the base of the soup.

The step that matters

Simmering the soup gently. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and lets the meat become tender; a hard boil makes the liquid cloudy and toughens the meat.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, thyme, clove, pepper, butter, madeira wine, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekthe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, thyme, clove, pepper, butter, madeira wine, lemon. 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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