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Terrapin White Stew

A stew of boiled terrapins with egg yolk butter, white wine, cream, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Terrapin White Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the terrapins until done.

  2. In a bowl, rub the yolks of 6 hard boiled eggs with 2 tablespoons of fresh butter to form a smooth paste.

Make the stew

  1. In a chafing dish, combine the terrapins, the reserved cooking liquor, and the egg mixture.

  2. Add ⅓ cup of white wine, ¼ teaspoon of grated nutmeg, 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt, lemon rind, and a pinch of cayenne pepper.

  3. Stir in ½ pint of heavy cream.

  4. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 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

Terrapins
Provide the main meat that forms the body of the stew.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and thicken it into a smooth, rich texture.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and helps form a smooth paste with the yolks.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and body, giving the stew a smooth, silky texture.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich cream and yolks.

The step that matters

Cooking the stew with constant stirring. Egg yolks and cream can curdle or scorch if overheated or left unattended. Constant stirring keeps the heat even and the sauce smooth as the yolks set.

“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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