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Stewed Terrapin

A stew made from terrapin meat, blood, and eggs, flavored with spices, brandy, sherry, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Stewed Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapins

  1. Plunge the live terrapins into boiling water until the shells begin to crack, about 1 hour.

  2. Remove the terrapins and let them cool.

  3. Take off the shell and outer skin, saving all the blood.

  4. If there are eggs, set them aside.

  5. Remove the insides carefully, avoiding breaking the gall.

  6. Cut the liver and terrapin meat into small pieces, adding the blood and juice.

Stew and finish

  1. Add ½ pint of water and sprinkle flour over the mixture in a stewpan.

  2. Stew slowly for 10 minutes, adding salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and mace.

  3. Stir in ⅓ cup brandy and ½ pint sherry wine, and let it simmer gently.

  4. Add ½ pint of rich cream and ½ pound of sweet butter, stirring to prevent boiling.

  5. Just before serving, peel the eggs and add them whole.

  6. If no eggs are available, use hard boiled egg yolks instead.

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. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Terrapins
Provide the main meat and liver that form the body of the stew.
Flour
Thickens the stewed liquid so it clings to the meat.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the simmered stew.
Rich cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture.
Sweet butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring while adding the cream and butter. Rich dairy can curdle or separate if it boils, so the stew should be stirred and kept from boiling once cream and butter go in.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, brandy, sherry, wine, cream, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, brandy, sherry, wine, cream, butter. 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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