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Stewed Terrapin, with Cream

A creamy stew of terrapin meat cooked with butter, flour, cream, wine, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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, with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour until it bubbles.

  3. Gradually add the cream, salt, white pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne.

  4. Add the terrapin meat.

  5. Stir until scalding hot.

Finish and serve

  1. Move the saucepan to a cooler part of the stove to keep hot but not boiling.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg yolks, ensuring it does not boil.

  3. Pour into a tureen with the Madeira and lemon juice.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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
Adds richness and flavour to the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Cream
Forms the body of the sauce and gives it a rich, smooth texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce gently and add richness when stirred in off the heat.
Terrapin meat
Is the main protein, giving the stew its substance and flavour.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth of aroma to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg yolks, ensuring it does not boil.. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the sauce boils, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving the sauce grainy and thin.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cream, nutmeg, meat, egg, madeira wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, nutmeg, meat, egg, madeira wine. 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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