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Mock-turtle Soup

A hearty soup made from calf head, veal knuckle, herbs, anchovies, butter, flour, lemon, Madeira wine, meatballs, and hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg 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 ↓

Mock-turtle Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head and veal

  1. Scald the calf's head and wash it clean.

  2. Boil it in a large pot of water for 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the skin and tongue from the veal.

  4. Add the tongue, skin, onion, cloves, mace, nutmeg, herbs, and anchovies to the broth.

  5. Stew until tender.

  6. Remove the meat and cut it into 2-inch pieces.

  7. Slice the skinned tongue.

  8. Strain the liquid through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stew pan.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Add the strained liquid while stirring continuously.

  4. Combine the meat with lemon juice and Madeira wine, if using.

  5. Season with pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  6. Add the meatballs and hard-boiled eggs.

  7. Stew gently for 1 hour.

  8. Add more liquid if the soup is too thick 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 gelatin and meat that give the soup its body and rich texture.
Butter
Fat that cooks with the flour to form a roux, thickening the soup.
Flour
Thickens the strained broth into a smooth, body-rich soup when cooked with butter.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, heavy broth.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add substance and a mild, creamy texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the liquid into the roux. Adding the broth while stirring continuously keeps the flour dispersed, so the soup thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, clove, mace, nutmeg, butter, flour, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, clove, mace, nutmeg, butter, flour, 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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