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Btewed Terrapin

A stew of terrapin meat, liver and eggs finished with cream, mashed egg yolks and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Btewed Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapins

  1. Put the terrapins alive in boiling water and boil for 10-15 minutes until you can remove the outer skin and toe nails.

  2. Transfer them to fresh boiling water, add a heaping teaspoon of salt, and boil slowly until the shells part easily and the flesh is tender.

  3. Remove the terrapins from the water, take off the under shell, and let them cool enough to handle.

  4. Carefully remove the meat from the upper shells, discarding the sand-bags, bladders, intestines, and gall sacks.

  5. Break the terrapin meat into convenient pieces, cut the small intestines into tiny pieces, and add them to the meat along with the liver and any eggs found inside.

Make the stew

  1. Place the mixture into a stewing pan with the juices released during cutting.

  2. Melt the butter in flour and add it to the terrapin mixture, heating it on moderate heat.

  3. Boil the 6 eggs for 15 minutes, then remove the yolks and mash them with 2 tablespoons of wine until smooth.

  4. Add the mashed yolks, cream, and seasoning to the terrapin mixture, letting it boil once.

  5. Remove from heat, add the remaining wine, and serve immediately.

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. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Sherry + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 main meat, which becomes tender after boiling and forms the body of the stew.
Eggs
Yolks mashed into the stew thicken it and give it a rich, smooth body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with flour helps thicken the stewing liquid.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the stew a smooth, mellow texture.
Sherry or madeira wine
Adds acidity and aroma, brightening the rich cream and butter.

The step that matters

Adding the mashed yolks and cream. Egg yolks and cream thicken and enrich the stew, but if it boils hard after the yolks go in, the eggs can curdle and the sauce turns grainy. Letting it boil only once keeps it smooth.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, butter, sherry, 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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