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Terrapin or Turtle

A stew of boiled turtle meat seasoned with salt, cayenne, black pepper, butter, flour, and cream.

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

Terrapin or Turtle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turtle

  1. Plunge the turtle into boiling water until it is dead.

  2. Remove the outer skin and toenails, then rinse well.

  3. Boil in salted water until tender.

  4. Take off the shells, remove the gall and sac, and clean the terrapin thoroughly.

  5. Cut the meat and entrails into small pieces, saving all the juice.

Make the stew

  1. In a saucepan, combine the meat with salt, cayenne, and black pepper to taste.

  2. Add the softened butter mixed with flour.

  3. Stir in a few tablespoons of cream last.

  4. Stir often while cooking and serve very hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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

Turtle
Forms the main body of the stew as tender, meaty pieces.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the stew.
All-purpose flour
Mixed with the butter to thicken the stew's liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour. Flour mixed into butter and added to hot liquid thickens it evenly; stirring often keeps it from sticking, scorching, or forming lumps.

“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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