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Chicken Terrapin

A chicken dish simmered in Madeira wine with butter, flour, eggs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson." · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the chicken

  1. Boil a young chicken until perfectly tender.

  2. Pick the chicken into small pieces and put it in a porcelain stew-pan with a teacup of boiling water.

Make and add the sauce

  1. Melt a pound of butter, add one teaspoonful of flour, then beat in the yolks of two eggs.

  2. When the chicken is boiling hot, add the sauce mixture a little at a time to prevent lumps.

  3. Boil for a minute or two, stirring constantly.

Season and finish

  1. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in half a gill of Madeira or Sherry wine.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

539Calories
20 gProtein
7 gFat
97 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". 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. See the original page.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and egg sauce so it clings to the chicken.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the sauce and thicken it as they gently heat.
Madeira
Adds aroma and a rich, slightly sweet flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the sauce a little at a time. Flour and egg yolks can clump or curdle if they meet hot liquid all at once. Adding the sauce gradually while stirring lets it blend smoothly and thicken evenly.

“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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