Name: Mock Terrapin
Ingredients: 1½ cups cold cooked chicken, diced; 2 hard-boiled eggs, whites chopped, yolks finely chopped; 1 cup White Sauce; 3 tablespoons sherry wine; 1 teaspoon salt; a few grains cayenne pepper

Why it works: Chicken and sherry work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 891 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Mock Terrapin

Ingredients

1½ cups cold cooked chicken, diced
2 hard-boiled eggs, whites chopped, yolks finely chopped
1 cup White Sauce
3 tablespoons sherry wine
1 teaspoon salt
a few grains cayenne pepper

Directions

In a saucepan, combine the cold cooked chicken, chopped egg whites, and finely chopped yolks.
Add the white sauce, salt, and cayenne pepper to the mixture.
Cook over low heat for two minutes, then stir in the sherry wine.

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.

Chicken + sherrytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together891 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,958 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Wine + peppertop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,066 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Chicken + winetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,496 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken: Provides the main body and meaty bulk of the filling.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the filling.
White sauce: Binds the chicken and egg into a moist, cohesive mixture.
Sherry wine: Adds aroma and a mild, fragrant flavour near the end of cooking.

“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.