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Terrapin Stew

A stew made from boiled terrapins, butter, wine, spices, and mashed egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Terrapin Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapins

  1. Boil the terrapins for three hours until soft.

  2. Carefully open them and remove the sand bag, spongy part, and gall without breaking it.

  3. Cut the remaining terrapin into small pieces and place in a stew pan.

Make the stew

  1. Add butter, wine, salt, black pepper, red pepper, and mustard to the pan.

  2. Mash the egg yolks with a little butter and mix into the stew.

  3. Stir everything together and stew for fifteen minutes.

  4. 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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Sherry + mustardtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together304 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Terrapins
Form the main body of the stew, providing the meat that gives it its substance.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the stew a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Sherry or madeira wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that brightens the rich meat and butter.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Mashed into the stew to thicken it and add a creamy, rich texture.

The step that matters

Removing the sand bag, spongy part, and gall. The gall is bitter and can taint the whole stew if it bursts, so it must be removed intact without breaking it.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sherry, pepper, egg. 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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