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Terrapin À LA Baltimore

A terrapin dish simmered in stock and wine, finished with eggs, butter, cayenne, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Terrapin À LA Baltimore

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Add terrapin meat, bones cut into pieces and entrails cut into smaller pieces, to stock and wine.

  2. Cook slowly until the liquor is reduced by one-half.

  3. Add liver separated into pieces, eggs, butter, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

217Calories
7 gProtein
17 gFat
4 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
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 Fannie Merritt Farmer. 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. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Wine + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Terrapin
Provides the main meat, and the bones and entrails add savory depth to the liquor.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the sauce as they gently cook, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavor and smoothing the finished sauce.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that reduces to concentrate flavor for the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until the liquor is reduced by one-half. Gentle heat reduces the liquid without scrambling the egg yolks added later, and concentrates flavor. Boiling hard can curdle the eggs.

“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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