Skip to main content
Main

Terrapin a LA Newburg

Terrapin à la Newburg is a creamy terrapin dish thickened with egg yolks and flavored with Madeira or sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,107 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Terrapin a LA Newburg

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler or chafing dish, combine the terrapin and 1 cup of cream.

  2. Heat the mixture until it is warmed through.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix with the remaining ½ cup of cream.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the terrapin mixture until it thickens.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt, pepper, paprika, and add the Madeira or sherry just 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. Pepper + sherrytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  2. Cream + sherrytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + sherrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
Forms the main body of the dish, giving it its substance and bite.
Cream
Provides richness and a smooth, moist sauce base.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they gently set with heat, giving it body and a silky texture.
Madeira or sherry
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth of flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the hot terrapin. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the mixture is too hot or boils, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat moderate and stir constantly.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes