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Stewed Terrapins

A stew of terrapins cooked with cream, wine, butter, egg yolks, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

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 ↓

Stewed Terrapins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapins

  1. Boil terrapins in water for 10-15 minutes until nails come out and skin rubs off.

  2. Transfer terrapins to fresh boiling water.

  3. Boil until the under shell cracks, about 45 minutes.

  4. Remove the under shell.

  5. Discard sand and gall bags.

  6. Take out intestines.

  7. Boil terrapins again in the same water for 1 hour.

  8. Pick liver and meat from the upper shell.

  9. Chop intestines.

  10. Mix intestines with the meat.

  11. Add enough boiling liquor to keep the mixture moist.

  12. Refrigerate overnight.

Make the stew and serve

  1. Combine cream, wine, butter, egg yolks, salt, pepper, and cayenne for each terrapin.

  2. Pour the mixture over the terrapin.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Serve.

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. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Wine + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,066 recipes

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

  5. Cream + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 is cooked until tender and picked from the shell.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the stewing sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounded, savoury flavour to the sauce.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add a rich, creamy texture.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture moist before refrigerating. Adding enough boiling liquor keeps the picked meat from drying out during the overnight rest, so the finished stew stays tender and juicy.

“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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