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Chicken a LA Terrapin

A creamy sauce of chicken, eggs, butter, and cream, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken a LA Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and stir until blended.

  3. Stir in the chicken and cream.

Heat and finish

  1. Place the mixture over hot water or in a double boiler until heated through.

  2. Press the yolks of the eggs and mix with a little cream until smooth.

  3. Add the chopped egg whites and bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, then 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Flour and butter 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 base and carries flavor as the sauce starts.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness so the sauce stays silky when heated.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the sauce, giving it body and a creamy texture.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the dish.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, and if they are added to a very hot mixture or boiled hard they can scramble and turn grainy. Mixing them first with a little cream and bringing the mixture to a boil only after that helps keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, flour, butter, cream, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, flour, butter, cream, pepper. 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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