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Stewed Water Turtles, or Terrapins

A stew of boiled female turtles served with a sauce of egg yolk, Madeira, spices, currant jelly, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stewed Water Turtles, or Terrapins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turtles

  1. Select the largest, thickest, and fattest female turtles, ensuring they are alive.

  2. Wash the turtles.

  3. Place the turtles into boiling water with a little salt.

  4. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes until done.

  5. Remove the shell.

  6. Extract the meat.

  7. Discard the sand-bag, gall, and entrails.

  8. Cut the meat into pieces.

Stew the meat

  1. Place the meat in a stewpan with its eggs and enough fresh butter to stew well.

  2. Cover the pan.

  3. Stew until hot throughout, shaking it occasionally over the fire.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Make a sauce in another pan with the beaten yolk of egg, Madeira or sherry, nutmeg, mace, currant jelly, cayenne pepper, and salt, enriched with a large lump of fresh butter.

  2. Stir the sauce over the fire until it almost boils.

  3. Remove the sauce from heat.

  4. Serve the terrapins hot in a covered dish.

  5. Serve the sauce separately in a sauce tureen.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Sherry + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Mace + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Female turtles (terrapins)
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and rich when boiled and then stewed.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat so the meat stews gently and stays moist.
Beaten egg yolk
Thickens and enriches the sauce as it gently heats, giving it a smooth body.
Madeira or sherry
Adds acidity and wine flavour that balances the sweet currant jelly and rich butter.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity tartness, and helps give the sauce its body.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce over the fire. Egg yolk in the sauce can curdle and turn grainy if it overheats. Stirring and heating only until it almost boils lets the yolk thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sherry, nutmeg, mace, pepper):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sherry, nutmeg, mace, 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.

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