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Hock Terrapin

A dish of sliced calf's liver cooked with mustard, cayenne pepper, eggs, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hock Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liver

  1. Slice the calf's liver and season it.

  2. Fry the liver until brown.

Make the terrapin

  1. Hash the liver not very fine and dust it thickly with flour.

  2. Add mixed mustard, cayenne pepper, chopped hard-boiled eggs, butter, and water.

  3. Let the mixture boil together for 2-3 minutes and serve hot.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Liver + mustardtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Liver + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Liver + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's liver
Forms the main body of the dish, giving a rich, meaty texture once fried and hashed.
Flour (in the method)
Dusts the hashed liver so it thickens the mixture and helps it cling together.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a creamy texture that bulks out the mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the mixture.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharpness that cuts through the richness of the liver and butter.

The step that matters

Let the mixture boil together for 2-3 minutes. Boiling briefly lets the flour thicken the liquid and bind the hash into a cohesive mixture. Boiling too long can make the liver tough and dry, so timing matters.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, egg, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, egg, 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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