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Terrapin Clear Soup

A clear soup made from terrapin water, shells, stock, salt, cayenne, and Madeira wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and madeira wine work together. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 582 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Terrapin Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Save the water used to boil the terrapin.

  2. Add broken terrapin shells to the water and boil for 6 hours.

  3. Add enough stock or bouillon to cover the shells and boil until they begin to soften.

Finish and serve

  1. Cool and clarify the broth.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, and Madeira wine, then serve clear.

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 + madeira winetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Broken terrapin shells
Release gelatin and savory flavour into the broth during long simmering.
Stock or bouillon
Adds savory depth and body to the broth around the shells.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and aromatic complexity to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Cool and clarify the broth. Clarifying removes suspended particles and fat so the soup stays clear. Cooling lets fat solidify on the surface so it can be lifted off cleanly.

“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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