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Stewed Water Turtles, or Terrapins

A stew of water turtle meat with eggs, Madeira or sherry, currant jelly, spices, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Stewed Water Turtles, or Terrapins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the turtle

  1. Wash the live turtle.

  2. Place it in boiling water with salt and boil for 10–15 minutes until fully cooked.

  3. Remove the shell and extract the meat, discarding the sand-bag, gall, and entrails.

Stew the meat

  1. Cut the meat into pieces and place it in a stew pan with its eggs and enough fresh butter to stew well.

  2. Cover the pan and heat the meat thoroughly, shaking it occasionally to prevent sticking.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In another pan, combine the egg yolks, Madeira or sherry, nutmeg, mace, currant jelly, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  2. Stir the sauce over heat until it nearly boils, then remove from heat.

  3. Serve the stewed terrapins hot in a covered dish, with the sauce on the side.

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 + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Sherry + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Mace + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Water turtle (terrapin)
Forms the main body of the dish, giving the stew its meaty texture.
Butter
Provides fat and moisture so the meat stews gently without drying or sticking.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Madeira or sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce over heat until it nearly boils. Egg yolks thicken as they warm but scramble if overheated. Stirring steadily and stopping just short of boiling keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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