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Mock Terrapin

A liver dish with mustard, cayenne, eggs, wine, and butter, simmered after frying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mock Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Season the liver with coarse sea salt and fry it until brown.

  2. Cut the liver into small bits and dredge them well with flour.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the mustard, cayenne pepper, water, chopped eggs, and butter to the pan.

  2. Let it boil for a minute or two, then add the wine.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the dish and browns in the pan.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor into the sauce.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a soft, creamy texture to the sauce.
Flour
Helps the liver pieces brown and thickens the pan sauce.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the rich butter and liver.

The step that matters

Dredge the liver pieces well with flour. An even flour coat helps the pieces brown evenly and gives the pan sauce body. Bare patches stay pale and can leave clumps of flour in the sauce.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, butter, wine, pepper, egg, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter, wine, pepper, egg, flour. 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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