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Stewed Terrapin

A stew of terrapin meat, eggs, and spices simmered with brandy, sherry, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Stewed Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapin

  1. Plunge the live terrapins into boiling water until the sides and lower shell begin to crack, about 10 minutes.

  2. Remove them and let them cool, then take off the shell and outer skin, saving all the blood.

  3. If there are eggs, set them aside.

  4. Remove the insides carefully, avoiding breaking the gall.

  5. Cut the liver and the rest of the terrapin into small pieces, adding the blood and juice.

Make the stew

  1. Add ½ pint of water to the stew pan.

  2. Sprinkle flour over the pieces in the stew pan.

  3. Stew slowly for 10 minutes.

  4. Add salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and mace.

  5. Add ⅓ cup of brandy to the stew.

  6. Add ½ pint of sherry wine to the stew.

  7. Let it simmer gently.

Finish and serve

  1. About 10 minutes before serving, add ½ pint of rich cream to the stew.

  2. Add ½ pound of sweet butter to the stew.

  3. Stir to prevent boiling.

  4. If there are no terrapin eggs, add the yolks of hard-boiled eggs just before serving.

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. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

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

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

Terrapins
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Flour
Dusted on the pieces, it thickens the stew liquid as it cooks.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the stewed liquid.
Rich cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished stew.
Sweet butter
Adds fat for richness and a glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy texture when terrapin eggs are not used.

The step that matters

Stir to prevent boiling. Once cream and butter are added, boiling can cause the dairy to separate and turn grainy, so the stew should be kept at a gentle simmer and stirred.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, brandy, sherry, wine, cream, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, brandy, sherry, wine, cream, 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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