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Terrapins

A stew of boiled terrapins seasoned with salt, pepper, mustard, mace, and cream, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Terrapins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapins

  1. Put the terrapins in boiling water until they are dead.

  2. Remove the outer skin and toe-nails, then wash in warm water.

  3. Boil again until tender, adding salt to the water.

  4. Remove the shells and clean carefully, removing the sandbag and gall.

Make the stew

  1. Cut the meat into small pieces and place in a saucepan with its juices.

  2. Season with salt, cayenne, and black pepper, then add butter and flour for thickening.

  3. Stir for a short time, then add cream and Madeira.

  4. Serve hot in a deep dish, adding mace, mustard, and hard-boiled egg yolks just before serving.

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

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Terrapins
Provide the tender meat that forms the body of the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps carry the seasonings through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking juices into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the sauce, giving a smoother mouthfeel.
Madeira
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy, crumbly texture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the butter and juices. Flour must be cooked briefly in the fat before liquid is added, or it stays floury and lumpy. Stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

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