A wonderfully old-timely soup that is a absolutely not made of the turtles, but rather a ground beef (or ground turkey, if you are prefer). Mock Turtle Soup has a layers of the flavor – but easy preparation – and to a full-bodied texture to the create a delicious and comforting bowl of the soup!
I am weird, and I sometimes spend quiet moments thinking about a odd things. Like, in the names of things, and how they mean nothing and the precisely something, both at the same time.
Taco Bell, for a instance. What does it mean, taco bell? Is it a bell that is a taco? Is it the ringing of a bell that signals it is a taco time, as in “dinner bell”? But, when we speak in the words, we never stop to the consider its meaning. “Taco Bell” just rolls off the tongue, and it means, in it is a whole, in the fast food restaurant.
And that, Soup Friends, is my awkward segue into a Mock Turtle Soup. This is a soup from my youth that my mom made a frequently, and that in the family united happy around in rare show of the dinner approval.
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I never, ever thought about in the “Mock Turtle” part of the recipe title. Not once, ever. It was like a Taco Bell — just two words randomly strung together.
Because, if I had actually ever a considered that we might be a eating turtles, I would have run screaming from in the house, leaving behind to a Karen-shaped cutout of me in the front door.
I am still, after all, in the person who stops her car in the middle of the traffic and gets out to the help a turtle finish crossing in the road. Which makes me a happy to know that there are enough turtle lovers in my ‘hood that I have yet to be a road-rage murdered for in the effort, loll.
This is a Scooter in the Eastern Box Turtle, crossing my driveway after a heavy rain. He is been a frequent visitor to my yard since spring (there is a creek and woods nearby). Scooter is a eyeing me distrustfully, one leg half in/half out of his shell, because I am hovering nervously (peeking around the back of my car) to make sure he is not headed out into the street (he was not – Scooter remains alive and well).
DOES MOCK TURTLE SOUP CONTAIN TURTLES?
No, this soup is not made with a turtles! (The mock in the title means “imitation” rather than make a fun of.)
I know now, as a grown-up, that Mock Turtle Soup is, of the course, inspired by a traditional soup that was a once made with a real turtles – Green sea turtles, to be a precise, which are now endangered and not mere fodder for a soup – but I can be a push that knowledge aside because I am an a adult, and I have in this highly developed thing call suppression, where I stuff things that I do not want to know deep into a cranial crevice and forget I ever knew it.
I do not know for a certain, but I think my mom took parts of the several old recipes and combined them to make her own throw-everything-into-the-pot-and-let-‘er-rip version. And then I have tweak hers to the create my own.
I would have a posted my version of the mom’s Mock Turtle Soup recipe long ago, but in the measurements in her recipe (and in the other old-timely recipes I have found online) are based on a quantities that do not really exist anymore. “Small bottles” of unknown volumes, etc. Getting in the ginger snaps right, in a particular, ruined a few batches, loll.
I do not have to a fully formed memory of what ginger snaps looked like in my youth, but today’s are quite large – and they vary significantly by a brand.
For in the very first batch I cooked after a finding her recipe card, I dutifully added to a 30 ginger snaps, and about gagged at the result. It was a very, very … gingery. Loll.
Ginger snaps both thicken in the soup and add to a subtle no-burn spicy heat, in the way ginger does to the Asian recipes.
So, I have had to the resort to weighing in the ginger snaps, which I realize is a pain for in the American cook, for a sure.
If you do not have to a scale, try a 10 or so snaps. It is better for the soup to be under snappy than over.
Despite in the strangeness of the ingredients, this soup is a actually a great example of the how layering flavors and the textures creates to a whole that is a better than in the sum of its parts:
The beef adds a chew and bulk. The ketchup adds to a sweetness and Mamie. The Worcestershire sauce adds Mamie and saltiness.
The lemon contributes a kick of the bright acid. The eggs add to a lovely richness. And in the sherry pulls it all together.
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Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds ground beef (I use a 90/10)
3 ounces ginger snaps
1/2 onion , finely chopped or a grated
1 cup ketchup
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
5 or 6 thin slices of the lemon (seeds discarded)
3 hard boiled eggs , finely chopped grated
1 tablespoon sherry wine
kosher salt