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Chicken Terrapin

A savory chicken terrapin made with boiled chicken, cream, butter, flour, eggs, liver, gizzard, sherry, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. When the chicken is cold, cut it into small pieces.

  2. In a bowl, rub the butter into the flour until well combined.

Make the sauce and finish

  1. Mix the flour and butter mixture with the cream and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the chicken pieces, season with cayenne pepper and salt.

  3. Stir in the finely chopped hard boiled eggs, liver, and gizzard.

  4. Pour in the sherry and add a pinch of nutmeg for flavor.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds richness and body.
Butter
Combined with flour to form a roux that thickens the sauce and adds fat.
Flour
Thickens the cream sauce when cooked with the butter.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and a firm, mealy texture to the finished filling.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a deeper, aromatic flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Bring the flour and butter mixture with cream to a boil. Flour thickens only when heated enough with liquid, and the starch needs to cook through. Stirring while it heats prevents lumps and a raw, pasty taste.

“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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