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Sauce

Terrapin Sauce

A sauce made from powdered hard‑boiled egg yolks, cream, butter, sherry, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Terrapin Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Rub the hard-boiled egg yolks into a powder.

  2. Add the cream and seasonings, stirring over low heat for 2-3 minutes until hot, but do not boil.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the sherry.

Finish and serve

  1. Add any meat or fish you wish to use with the sauce.

  2. Place the dish over boiling water (bain-marie) until heated through.

  3. Serve in a casserole.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + sherrytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Cooked yolks mashed into a powder thicken the sauce and give it a rich, smooth body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, silky texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a glossy mouthfeel.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the richness of the yolks and butter.

The step that matters

Do not boil the cream and yolk mixture. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat and curdle or turn grainy if they get too hot. Keeping the mixture just hot, not boiling, keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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