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Turtle Soup

A soup made from turtle meat, bacon, onions, and seasonings, simmered in a shell broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turtle

  1. Kill the turtle at night in winter or in the morning in summer.

  2. Hang it by the hind fins, cut off the head, and let it bleed well.

  3. Carefully separate the bottom shell from the top shell, avoiding the gall-bladder.

  4. Place the liver and entrails in separate bowls of water.

  5. Cut the flesh from the bottom shell and place it in water.

  6. Break the shell in two.

  7. Wash the shell clean.

  8. Place the shell in a pot.

  9. Cover the shell with water, add the bacon and chopped onions, and boil for three hours, adding more water if necessary.

  10. Clean the top shell and set it aside.

  11. Par-boil the fins.

  12. Remove the black skin from the fins.

  13. Place the fins in water.

  14. Cut the flesh from both shells into small pieces and mix with the fins in a dish.

  15. Sprinkle with salt and cover.

Make the soup

  1. After boiling, remove the bacon.

  2. Scrape the shell clean.

  3. Strain the liquid.

  4. Reserve one-third of the liquid for the soup.

  5. Combine the nice bits of meat with the reserved liquid, adding enough to fill the upper shell.

  6. Season with wine, cayenne pepper, mushroom ketchup, lemon pickle, and spices.

  7. Mix well and serve.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Turtle
Provides the main meat and body of the soup.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and smoky flavour to the stock as it boils.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the boiled stock.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the finished soup.
Lemon pickle
Adds acidity and bright tang that balances the rich meat.

The step that matters

Boiling the shell with bacon and onions for three hours. A long, gentle simmer is needed to draw gelatin and flavour from the shell and meat, and adding water as it reduces keeps the liquid from boiling dry and concentrating too much.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mushroom, ketchup, lemon, mace, nutmeg, clove):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom, ketchup, lemon, mace, nutmeg, clove. 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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