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Stewed Terrapin

A stew of terrapin cooked with water, cream, butter, spices, brandy, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stewed Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapins

  1. Plunge the terrapins alive into boiling water and let them remain until the sides and lower shell begin to crack (less than an hour).

  2. Remove the terrapins and let them cool.

  3. Remove the shell and outer skin, saving as much blood as possible.

  4. If there are eggs, set them aside in a dish.

  5. Remove the inside of the terrapin, being careful not to break the gall; remove the gall immediately.

  6. Cut up the liver and the rest of the terrapin into small pieces, adding the blood and juice that have flowed out.

Make the stew

  1. Add half a pint of water.

  2. Sprinkle a little flour over the pieces as you place them in the stewpan.

  3. Let them stew slowly for ten minutes, adding salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and a very small blade of mace.

  4. Add a gill of the best brandy and half a pint of the very best sherry wine.

  5. Let it simmer over a slow fire very gently.

  6. About ten minutes before serving, add half a pint of rich cream and half a pound of sweet butter, with flour, to prevent boiling.

Add the eggs and serve

  1. Two or three minutes before taking them off the fire, peel the eggs carefully and throw them in whole.

  2. If there are no eggs, use hard-boiled hen's egg yolks instead.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

165Calories
1 gProtein
17 gFat
3 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
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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
Provide the main meat, whose tender texture forms the body of the stew.
Sweet butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished stew.
Rich cream
Adds richness and body, softening the stew's flavour and texture.
Sherry wine (in the method)
Adds acidity and aroma, deepening the stew's flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and butter. Cream and butter can separate or curdle if they boil. Adding them near the end, with flour to help stabilise them, keeps the stew smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, pepper. 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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