Skip to main content
Main

Mock Terrapin

Seasoned calf's liver cooked with mustard, cayenne, eggs, and butter, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the liver

  1. Season and fry the liver until light brown.

  2. Let it cool completely.

  3. Cut the liver into small pieces and dredge thickly with flour.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, combine the liver, mustard, cayenne, chopped eggs, and butter.

  2. Pour in the boiling water and boil for 2 to 3 minutes.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Liver + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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, browned and then cut into pieces that hold their shape.
Flour
Coats the liver pieces so they brown and help thicken the sauce as it simmers.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and a soft, rich texture to the sauce around the liver.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that cuts through the richness of the liver and butter.

The step that matters

Dredge the liver thickly with flour. Flour that is thick and evenly coated gives the liver pieces a browned surface and helps thicken the liquid they are simmered in. Uneven coating can leave dry patches or a thin, watery sauce.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

More mock terrapin recipes

Soup 8 See all 44 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes