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Chicken Terrapin

A sauce of butter, flour, milk, and chicken, thickened and flavored with eggs, carrots, peas, and mushrooms, served over chicken.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sauce

  1. Melt 3 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons flour, 1 teaspoon salt and a little pepper.

  2. Add gradually 1 cup sweet milk.

  3. Stir until it thickens.

  4. Add 1/2 cup cooked chicken, cut fine.

  5. Add the yolks of 2 hard-boiled eggs, cut fine.

  6. Add the whites cut in 1-inch pieces.

  7. Cook two minutes longer.

  8. Serve on toast.

Roast the fowls

  1. Split 2 well-grown, tender fowls down the back.

  2. Place them breast upwards in a dripping pan.

  3. Pour over them a large cupful of boiling water in which has been melted 2 tablespoons of butter.

  4. Cover closely and roast in a steady oven until they are tender all through and a light, even brown; about one hour is required.

  5. Baste at least every ten minutes.

  6. The last two times, baste with clear butter.

  7. Keep hot while you make the gravy.

  8. Use browned flour to thicken it.

  9. Add 1 small can of mushrooms, cut up into three pieces.

  10. Pour over the fowls and serve.

Boil the chicken and make the sauce

  1. Prepare and boil a chicken following receipt for boiled fowl.

  2. Reduce the liquor to 2 cups.

  3. Use the liquor for making sauce with 2 tablespoons each butter and flour, cooked together.

  4. Add to sauce 1/2 cup each of cooked carrots (cut in small pieces) and green peas.

  5. Add 1 teaspoon lemon juice, 2 eggs, salt and pepper.

  6. Place chicken on hot platter, surround with sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1007Calories
62 gProtein
30 gFat
121 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 11 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Chicken100g cooked165
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

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

By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog]. 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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and basting fat, adding richness and helping the fowls brown.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth white sauce as it cooks.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.
Eggs
Hard-boiled yolks and whites add body and texture; raw eggs set and thicken the sauce.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main meat, folded into the sauce to add substance.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a soft texture to the roasted fowls.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce until it thickens. Flour must be cooked in the melted butter and milk added gradually while stirring, or lumps form and the sauce stays thin. Cooking it fully removes the raw starch taste.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, chicken, lemon, egg, mushroom):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, chicken, lemon, egg, mushroom. 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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