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Mock Terrapin

A creamy dish of diced chicken or veal, eggs, and white wine, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Mock Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Stir in the flour.

  3. Add the cream, stirring until boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the chicken and eggs into dice.

  2. Add them to the mixture along with pepper and salt.

  3. Cook for two minutes.

  4. Add the white wine.

  5. Serve.

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 + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + white winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,904 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. White wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

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

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and flavour as it melts with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth sauce that holds the diced meat and eggs.
Cream
Forms the body of the sauce, giving it richness and a creamy texture.
Hard boiled eggs
Add a firm, soft-textured filling that gives the dish body and substance.
Cold cooked chicken or veal
Provides the meaty filling that gives the dish its main substance.
White wine
Adds a light acidity and aroma that brightens the rich cream sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour, then add the cream. Cooking the flour with the butter first forms a roux; adding cream while stirring and bringing it to a boil lets the starch swell evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

“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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