Name: Baked Terrapin
Ingredients: 1 terrapin; 2 tablespoons butter; ½ cup rolled crackers; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; ¼ teaspoon allspice; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ⅓ cup white wine; lemon slices

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the terrapin

Remove the head of the terrapin and boil it with the shell on until nearly done.
Take off the under shell, remove the meat, and pick it into pieces.

Fill and bake

Clean the upper shell and fill it with the meat, seasoning with butter, rolled crackers, chopped parsley, allspice, cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, and white wine.
Lay slices of lemon over the top and bake at 350°F (175°C) until heated through.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,289 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Terrapin: Provides the main meat, which is the body of the dish.
Butter: Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and keeps the filling moist.
Rolled crackers: Absorb liquid and give the filling body and a light crumb texture.
White wine: Adds acidity and moisture that brighten the rich meat during baking.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, pepper, white wine, lemon):

Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Tarragonfits better
Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, pepper, white wine, lemon. 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.