Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Water Turtles, or Terrapins

A stew of boiled terrapin meat, eggs, butter, and a sauce of egg yolk, Madeira or sherry, currant jelly, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stewed Water Turtles, or Terrapins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapins

  1. Select the largest, thickest, and fattest terrapins; females are best; they should be alive when brought from market.

  2. Wash the terrapins and put them alive into boiling water, add a little salt, and boil them until thoroughly done, or from ten to fifteen minutes.

  3. After boiling, take off the shell, extract the meat, and remove carefully the sand-bag and gall; also all the entrails; they are unfit to eat.

Stew the meat

  1. Cut the meat into pieces, and put it into a stewpan with its eggs, and sufficient fresh butter to stew it well.

  2. Let it stew till quite hot throughout, keeping the pan carefully covered, and shake it over the fire while stewing.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In another pan, make a sauce of beaten yolk of egg, highly flavored with Madeira or sherry, and powdered nutmeg and mace, a gill of currant jelly, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and salt to taste, enriched with a large lump of fresh butter.

  2. Stir this sauce well over the fire, and when it has almost come to a boil take it off.

  3. Send the terrapins to the table hot in a covered dish, and the sauce separately in a sauce tureen, to be used by those who like it, and omitted by those who prefer the genuine flavor of the terrapins when simply stewed with butter.

  4. If there are no eggs in the terrapin, "egg balls" may be substituted. (See recipe.)

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

32Calories
1 gProtein
2 gFat
5 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 7 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Currantnot in our table0
Macenot 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 F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Currant + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,983 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 (in the method)
Provide the main meat, which is stewed until tender and hot throughout.
Butter (in the method)
Enriches the stew and sauce, adding richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Egg yolk (in the method)
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a creamy body.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity acidity that balances the rich sauce.
Madeira or sherry (in the method)
Adds aromatic depth and a wine flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce over the fire and take it off before it boils. Egg yolk thickens with gentle heat, but if it gets too hot it can scramble and turn grainy, so the sauce should be removed just before boiling.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, nutmeg, mace):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, mace. 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.

You might also like

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