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Chicken Terrapin

A savory dish of chicken liver, eggs, cream, and sherry, simmered with butter, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Chicken Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the livers and hard boiled eggs coarsely and add to the chicken.

  2. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour, and stir until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the chicken stock and heat thoroughly for three minutes.

  3. Stir in the cream, reserving 4 tablespoons, and cook for one minute.

  4. Add the chicken mixture and simmer for ten minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. During this time, beat the yolks of the eggs with the reserved cream.

  2. Pour the yolk and cream mixture into the pan and stir for one minute.

  3. Remove from heat, add the sherry and lemon juice, and serve immediately.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken livers
Provide the main meaty body and rich flavour of the filling.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the stock into a smooth, stable sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as they gently set with heat.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Chicken stock
Supplies the liquid base of the sauce and savoury flavour.
Sherry
Adds a fruity, aromatic acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot. Stir them in off the heat or over very low heat, and keep stirring, so they thicken the sauce smoothly instead of curdling.

“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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