Name: Terrapin Chicken
Ingredients: a tablespoonful of good butter into the yolks of two hard boiled eggs; a wineglass of sherry; 1 chicken; two hard boiled eggs; allspice; cloves; mace; salt; pepper

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Terrapin Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

Stew 1 chicken.
Cut it into small pieces.
Add a little ground allspice, cloves, mace, salt, and pepper.
Work a tablespoonful of good butter into the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs.
Add all the above ingredients to the chicken.
Let them cook for ten minutes.

Serve

Add a wineglass of sherry to the tureen when ready to serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

388Calories

38 gProtein

21 gFat

6 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Allspice	1 tsp ground (1.9g)	5
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Mace	not in our table	0

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

By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). 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.

Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,189 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken: Provides the main body of the stew, becoming tender as it stews.
Butter: Enriches the hard-boiled egg yolks, adding richness and a smooth, moist texture.
Hard-boiled eggs: Their yolks, mashed with butter, thicken and enrich the stew.
Sherry: Adds acidity and aroma to the finished stew.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sherry, chicken, allspice, clove, pepper):

Thymefits better
Nutmegfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sherry, chicken, allspice, clove, 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.