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Stewed Terrapin

A stew made from terrapin meat, blood, and cream, flavored with spices and wine.

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 terrapins

  1. Plunge the live terrapins into boiling water until the shells begin to crack, about 1 hour.

  2. Remove the terrapins from the water and let them cool.

  3. Take off the shell and outer skin, saving all the blood.

  4. Remove the gall from the liver to avoid bitterness.

  5. Cut the liver and terrapin meat into small pieces.

Make the stew

  1. Add the blood and juice to a stewpan.

  2. Add ½ pint of water to the stewpan.

  3. Sprinkle flour over the mixture in the stewpan.

  4. Stew slowly for 10 minutes, adding salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and a small blade of mace.

  5. Add ⅓ cup of brandy to the stew.

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

  7. Let the stew 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, stirring to prevent boiling.

  3. If there are eggs, peel them and add whole just before serving.

  4. If there are no eggs, use hard boiled egg yolks.

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 and liver that form the body of the stew.
Sweet butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished stew.
Rich cream
Adds richness and body, softening the stew's flavour when added near the end.
Flour
Thickens the stewing liquid so it binds to the meat and blood.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the stew.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter without boiling. Butter and cream are emulsions of fat and water that can separate or turn greasy if the stew boils hard after they go in. Keeping the heat gentle and stirring constantly keeps the sauce smooth.

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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