Skip to main content
Main

Terrapin, Maryland Style

A Maryland-style terrapin dish cooked by steaming and served with butter, cayenne, salt, and optional sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson." · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Terrapin, Maryland Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapins

  1. Wash the terrapins thoroughly.

  2. Place the terrapins in a pot of boiling water, covering the pot tightly.

  3. Cook the terrapins by steam, checking for doneness when the skin comes off easily and the bones separate from the meat.

Clean and cut

  1. Remove all parts of the terrapin except the sand bag and the end of the alimentary canal.

  2. Cut the entrails finely.

  3. Carefully remove the liver from the gall; if the gall breaks, add a little of the gall to the dish.

  4. Cut all parts up and place them in a chafing dish with one pound of butter, a little cayenne pepper, and salt.

Serve

  1. Add sherry wine at the table if desired.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

114Calories
0 gProtein
12 gFat
2 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
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. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Terrapins
Form the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is cooked and cut up.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying the cayenne and salt through the dish.

The step that matters

Cook the terrapins by steam until the bones separate. Doneness is judged by the skin coming off easily and the bones separating from the meat. Undercooked meat stays tough and clings to the bone, while overcooking makes it dry and stringy.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes