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Stewed Water Turtles, or Terrapins

A stew of cooked female terrapins served with a sauce of egg yolk, Madeira or sherry, spices, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stewed Water Turtles, or Terrapins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapins

  1. Wash the terrapins.

  2. Place them alive in boiling water with a little salt, and boil for 10 to 15 minutes until thoroughly cooked.

  3. Remove the shell and extract the meat.

  4. Discard the sand-bag, gall, and entrails.

  5. Cut the meat into pieces.

Stew the meat

  1. Place it in a stew pan with its eggs and sufficient fresh butter.

  2. Cover and stew until hot, shaking the pan occasionally.

Make the sauce

  1. In another pan, combine the beaten egg yolk, Madeira or sherry, nutmeg, mace, currant jelly, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  2. Add a large lump of fresh butter.

  3. Stir the sauce over heat until it almost boils.

  4. Remove from heat.

Serve

  1. Serve the terrapins hot in a covered dish with the sauce separately in a sauce-tureen.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Sherry + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Mace + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Terrapins
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and rich when cooked and stewed.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the meat stay tender while it stews.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce as it gently heats, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Madeira or sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity body that balances the spices and wine.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce over heat until it almost boils. Egg yolk thickens when gently heated but can curdle and turn grainy if it gets too hot or boils, so the sauce must be heated slowly and stirred constantly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sherry, nutmeg, mace, pepper):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sherry, nutmeg, mace, pepper. 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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