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Mock Terrapin

A veal stew with eggs, mushrooms, and tomato sauce, simmered with spices and finished with lemon and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Mock Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan and add onion; cook until light brown.

  2. Add diced veal and brown over high heat, stirring carefully.

  3. Stir in flour and cook for a moment.

  4. Pour in stock (or water) and add all seasonings except lemon and wine.

Simmer and finish

  1. Tie the spices in a muslin bag and let simmer for 2 hours, covered tightly.

  2. Remove the spice bag, then add cream, chopped eggs, and mushrooms.

  3. Taste for seasoning, bring to a hard boil for 1 minute, then add lemon juice and sherry.

  4. Serve immediately in a very hot dish.

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. Cream + buttertop 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 + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Veal
Provides the meat, which browns first and becomes tender during the long simmer.
Eggs
Chopped hard-boiled whites and yolks add body and a firm, mild texture to the sauce.
Butter
Fat that carries the onion flavour and begins the browning of the base.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that coats the veal and eggs.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel that softens the sauce.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy savour and a tender bite to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Adding the lemon juice and sherry after the hard boil. Acid and alcohol are added last, off the long simmer, because prolonged boiling dulls their bright flavour and the cream can curdle or thin when over-heated.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, cream, butter, onion, flour, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, cream, butter, onion, flour, lemon. 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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