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Stewed Terrapin

A stew of boiled terrapin meat mixed with butter, flour, eggs, sherry, cream, wine, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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. Boil the terrapins in water for 1-1½ minutes.

  2. Remove the outer skin and toe nails, then return to fresh boiling water with salt.

  3. Boil slowly until the shells part easily.

  4. Remove from water, take off the under shell, and let cool.

  5. Extract the terrapins from the upper shells, discarding sandbags, bladders, thick intestines, and gall sacks.

  6. Break the terrapins into small pieces and finely chop the small intestines.

Make the stew

  1. Combine the pieces with the broken liver and eggs, adding the drained liquor.

  2. Mix ½ pound of butter with ¼ cup of flour and add to the mixture, heating through.

  3. Mash the yolks of 6 eggs with 2 tablespoons of sherry and stir in with 1 cup of thick cream, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat and add ⅓ cup of wine and 1 teaspoon of mace before serving.

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.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

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

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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, which becomes tender after slow boiling and breaking into pieces.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky body to the stew as it melts into the mixture.
Flour
Combined with butter to form a roux that thickens the stew.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they heat, giving it a smooth, custard-like body.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth texture that mellows the stew's flavour.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a mild acidity to the yolk mixture.

The step that matters

Heating the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat, but if the mixture boils hard after they are added, they can scramble and turn grainy. Bring it just to a boil, then remove from heat as the record directs.

“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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