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Terrapin in Shells

Terrapin in Shells is a dish of cooked terrapin meat mixed with butter, spices, bread crumbs, Madeira or sherry, and egg yolks, served in shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Terrapin in Shells

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapin

  1. Boil the terrapin and remove the inedible parts from the meat.

  2. Carefully remove the shell, scrape it clean, scald, and wipe it dry.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine the finely cut meat with butter, black pepper, coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, and bread crumbs.

  2. Wet the mixture with Madeira or sherry and add the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs, rubbed smooth.

  3. Mix well and heat just until it begins to boil.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the cleaned shells with the mixture and place them in the oven to brown.

  2. Serve 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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Terrapin meat
Forms the main body of the dish, giving the filling its substance and flavour.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and keeping the filling moist.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and fat, helping bind the filling and give it body.
Madeira or sherry
Moistens the mixture and adds a sweet, aromatic, slightly acidic note.
Hard-boiled eggs
Their rubbed yolks enrich the filling and help bind it into a smooth mass.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture just until it begins to boil. Egg yolks thicken and can curdle or turn grainy if overheated, so the filling should be heated only until it starts to boil and then removed to keep it smooth.

“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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