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Mock Terrapin

A liver-based dish seasoned with cayenne, cloves, mustard, and eggs, simmered in butter, water, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Mock Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Season and fry the liver until brown.

  2. Hash the liver, but do not chop too finely.

  3. Dust the liver thickly with flour.

Make the sauce

  1. Add mustard, cayenne pepper, cloves, chopped eggs, butter, and water. Boil for 2-3 minutes.

  2. Add wine.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the dish, giving it a meaty texture when hashed.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a firm, crumbly texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping to carry flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Dusting the liver helps it brown and gives a light coating.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharpness and pungency that balances the rich liver.

The step that matters

Dust the liver thickly with flour. A thick flour coating browns during frying and helps thicken the liquid added later. Too little flour leaves the liver pale and the sauce thin.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, egg, butter, wine, mustard, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, egg, butter, wine, mustard, flour. 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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