Skip to main content
Main

Terrapin Chicken

A creamy chicken dish with liver, eggs, sherry, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Terrapin Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the chicken, chopped liver, chopped hard boiled eggs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a bowl.

  2. Melt the butter over medium heat in a frying pan.

  3. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  4. Gradually add the chicken stock, stirring for 3 minutes.

  5. Add ¾ cup of cream and stir for 1 minute.

Combine and finish

  1. Mix in the chicken mixture and simmer for 10 minutes.

  2. Beat the uncooked egg yolks in a separate bowl and mix with the reserved cream.

  3. Taste the chicken mixture and adjust salt if needed.

  4. Pour the egg and cream mixture into the frying pan and stir for 1 minute.

  5. Remove from heat and add sherry and lemon juice.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Chicken + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together891 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the dish and provides its main body and meaty texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and thicken it gently as they cook, giving a smooth, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth base for the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor and forms the roux with the flour.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the sauce.
Sherry
Adds a sweet, aromatic acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble if the pan is too hot or stirred too long. Adding them off the boil, with gentle stirring, keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, liver, egg, cream, pepper, sherry, 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.

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes