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Soup

Terrapin Soup

A soup made from a fresh water terrapin with bacon, cloves, allspice, wine, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Terrapin Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer

  1. Clean the terrapin and place it in a kettle with water, bacon, cloves, allspice, salt, and peppers.

  2. Boil for 3 to 4 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken and brown the soup.

  2. Just before serving, add the wine and grated nutmeg.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Terrapin
Supplies the meat that forms the main body of the soup.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury, smoky flavour to the broth.
Cloves
Add warm, aromatic spice notes to the long-simmered broth.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the long-simmered broth.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma when stirred in just before serving.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, fragrant aroma added at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the wine and nutmeg just before serving. Wine and nutmeg are aromatic, and long boiling drives off their volatile aroma compounds. Adding them at the end keeps their bright, fragrant character in the finished soup.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, allspice, pepper, wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, allspice, pepper, wine. 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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