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Stewed Terrapin

A stew made from terrapin meat, blood, and eggs, flavored with spices, brandy, sherry, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Stewed Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapins

  1. Plunge the live terrapins into boiling water for less than an hour until the shells begin to crack.

  2. Remove the terrapins and let them cool.

  3. Take off the shell and outer skin, saving all the blood.

  4. If there are eggs, set them aside.

  5. Remove the insides carefully, avoiding breaking the gall.

  6. Cut the insides and the rest of the terrapin into small pieces.

  7. Add the blood and juice to the pieces.

Make the stew

  1. Add ½ cup of water to the stew-pan.

  2. Sprinkle flour over the pieces.

  3. Let them stew slowly for 10 minutes.

  4. Add salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and mace.

  5. Add ⅓ cup of brandy.

  6. Add ½ pint of sherry wine.

  7. Let it simmer gently.

  8. About 10 minutes before serving, add ½ pint of rich cream.

  9. Add ½ pound of sweet butter.

  10. Stir to prevent boiling.

Add the eggs and serve

  1. Just before removing from heat, peel the eggs.

  2. Add the peeled eggs whole.

  3. If no terrapin eggs, use hard-boiled egg yolks.

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. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Terrapins
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender as the stew simmers.
Flour
Thickens the stewing liquid so it clings to the meat.
Sweet butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the stew.
Rich cream
Adds richness and body, softening the stew's flavor.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the stewing liquid.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth to the stew.

The step that matters

Keep the stew from boiling once the cream and butter go in. Rich dairy and butter can separate or curdle when boiled hard, so the stew should stay at a gentle simmer and be stirred to prevent sticking and scorching.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, brandy, sherry, wine, cream, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, brandy, sherry, wine, cream, butter. 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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