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Mock Turtle Soup

A hearty soup made from calf head, veal, pork, and aromatics, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Clean the calf's head in hot water.

  2. Soak the head in cold water for 1 hour.

Simmer the soup

  1. Combine the head, veal, pork, roasted onion, lemon rind, carrots, herbs, and celery with 6 quarts of warm water in a large pot.

  2. Boil slowly for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the head and pork from the pot.

  4. Make forcemeat balls from the brains and tongue.

  5. Break the head's bones.

  6. Return everything to the pot.

  7. Boil for an additional 2 hours.

Finish the soup

  1. Melt butter in a small pan, then sauté the sliced onion with parsley, mace, and allspice.

  2. Add flour to thicken.

  3. Stir the soup slowly.

  4. Boil gently for 1 more hour.

  5. Strain the soup through a sieve.

  6. Season with salt, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and Madeira wine.

  7. Add mushrooms if desired.

  8. Serve with lemon quarters.

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

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

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

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

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 flavour and gelatin to the stock during the long simmer.
Pork
Contributes fat and savoury depth to the stock.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour from the sautéed onion and spices into the soup.
Flour
Starch that thickens the soup as it cooks.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aroma at the end, rounding out the seasoning.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour added to hot liquid can clump if not stirred in well. Stirring slowly while it cooks lets the starch disperse and thicken the soup evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, onion, clove, carrot, celery, butter. 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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