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Stewed Terrapin

A stew of terrapin meat, blood, eggs, and wine, finished with cream and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Stewed Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapin

  1. Place the live terrapins in boiling water until the shells begin to crack, about 1 hour.

  2. Remove them and let them cool, then take off the shell and outer skin, saving all the blood.

  3. If there are eggs, set them aside. Remove the insides carefully, avoiding breaking the gall.

  4. Cut the liver and terrapin meat into small pieces, adding the saved blood and juice.

Make the stew

  1. Add ½ pint of water and sprinkle flour over the mixture in a stewpan.

  2. Stew slowly for 10 minutes, adding salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and mace.

  3. Stir in ⅓ cup of brandy and ½ pint of sherry wine, and let it simmer gently.

  4. About 10 minutes before serving, add ½ pint of rich cream and ½ pound of sweet butter, mixing in flour to prevent boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, peel the eggs and add them whole, or use hard boiled yolks if no eggs are available.

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. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Flour and butter 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

Terrapin meat
Forms the main body of the stew and gives it its substance.
Flour
Thickens the stewing liquid so it becomes a rich, cohesive sauce.
Sweet butter
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished stew.
Rich cream
Adds body and mellows the flavor, softening the sherry and brandy.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the stew.
Brandy
Adds aromatic warmth and depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and butter. Once cream and butter are added, the mixture can curdle or separate if it boils. Keeping it at a gentle simmer and mixing in flour helps the sauce stay smooth and emulsified.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, brandy, sherry, wine, cream, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, brandy, sherry, wine, cream, butter. 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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