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To Cook a Terrapin

A stew of terrapin meat seasoned with salt, pepper, mustard, cloves, mace, and Port wine, finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Cook a Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapins

  1. Put the terrapins into boiling water and let them stand until the nails pull out easily and the outer shell peels off.

  2. Wash the terrapins in warm water.

  3. Boil the terrapins again until the shell cracks easily when struck with a knife.

  4. Remove the upper and lower shells.

  5. Carefully take off the shoulders to expose the liver and gall.

  6. Remove the gall. Sandbag the gall with great care to avoid contamination.

  7. Cut the terrapins into pieces.

Make the stew

  1. Mix the pieces with salt, black pepper, red pepper, mustard, cloves, and mace.

  2. Layer the terrapin pieces and seasoning alternately in a stew pan.

  3. Add the liquor from cutting the terrapins, Port wine, butter, bits of butter, and flour.

  4. Stew moderately, keeping the pan closely covered.

  5. Serve in a deep covered dish.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Clove + port winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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 through repeated boiling and slow stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the stew a silky body and rounded flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the stew becomes body-rich rather than thin.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stew moderately, keeping the pan closely covered. Gentle, covered heat keeps the liquid from evaporating and lets the meat become tender without toughening or scorching. Vigorous boiling would toughen the meat and reduce the sauce unevenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mustard, clove, port wine, butter, flour):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mustard, clove, port wine, butter, flour. 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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