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Diamond-back or Salt-water Terrapin

A boiled diamond-back or salt-water terrapin, served after skin removal and cleaning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Diamond-back or Salt-water Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Scald

  1. Plunge the terrapin head first into a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Add salt and cover the kettle; cook for 15 minutes.

Remove skin and shell

  1. Remove the terrapin and take off the black skin from the shell and the nails from the claws.

  2. Wash the terrapin thoroughly in warm water and remove the shells.

Prepare the meat

  1. Take out the dark green gall bladder, sandbag, entrails, and remove the head.

  2. Preserve any eggs if present.

  3. Keep all pieces of meat, along with the fat and legs, in water until ready to use.

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

What each ingredient does

Terrapin
Supplies the meat and fat that make up the dish.

“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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