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Stewed Terrapin with Cream

A creamy stew of terrapin meat simmered with butter, flour, cream, Madeira wine, and spices.

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 ↓

Stewed Terrapin with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a thick saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour until it bubbles.

  3. Gradually add the cream, salt, white pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne, stirring continuously.

  4. Add the terrapin meat and heat until scalding hot.

  5. Remove from direct heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the beaten egg yolks, ensuring the mixture does not boil.

  2. Pour into a tureen containing the Madeira wine and lemon juice, 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and adds a rich, rounded flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth, body-giving sauce.
Cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and gives it richness and moisture.
Terrapin meat
Provides the main protein and substance of the stew.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce gently and add richness when heated without boiling.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness, depth and aroma to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg yolks without boiling. Egg yolks thicken by setting as they heat, but if the mixture boils they can curdle and turn grainy. Keeping it just below boiling gives a smooth, velvety texture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, butter, flour, cream, nutmeg, egg, madeira wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, flour, cream, nutmeg, egg, madeira wine. 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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