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 ↓
Philadelphia Stewed Terrapin
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the terrapins
Put the terrapins alive into a pot of boiling water, then boil for 10 to 15 minutes until you can remove the outer skin and toenails.
Return the terrapins to fresh boiling water with 2 teaspoons of salt.
Boil slowly until the shells part easily and the flesh is tender, about 1 to 1.5 hours.
Remove the terrapins from the pot and save 1 cup of the boiling liquid.
Take off the undershell and let it cool enough to handle.
Remove the meat from the upper shells.
Carefully discard the sand-bags, bladders, intestines, and gallbladder without breaking it.
Break the terrapin into pieces.
Make the stew
Add the liver, all the eggs, the juices from cutting, and the saved boiling liquid.
In a china-lined saucepan over moderate heat, rub the flour with a small portion of butter to a cream.
Stir the cream into the terrapin mixture.
Rub the yolks of the eggs into a smooth paste with salt, cayenne, butter, and wine, then add the paste to the terrapin.
Mix well.
When hot, add the cream.
Serve immediately without boiling after adding the cream.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,505 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Terrapins
- Provide the tender meat that forms the body of the stew.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Add body and richness as the yolks are rubbed into a smooth paste that thickens the stew.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving a smooth texture to the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the stew when cooked with butter into a cream before being stirred in.
- Thick cream
- Adds richness and a silky texture when stirred in at the end.
- Madeira or sherry
- Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the rich, buttery sauce.
The step that matters
Serve immediately without boiling after adding the cream. Boiling a dairy-rich mixture after the cream goes in can cause it to curdle or separate, so it should only be heated gently until hot.
“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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