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Stewed Water Turtles, or Terrapins

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

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 turtle.

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

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

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

Stew and make the sauce

  1. Cover the pan and let it stew until hot throughout, shaking it occasionally over the fire.

  2. In another pan, make a sauce by combining the egg yolks, Madeira or sherry, nutmeg, mace, currant jelly, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  3. Stir over the fire until almost boiling, then remove from heat.

Serve

  1. Serve the stewed terrapins hot in a covered dish, with the sauce separately in a sauce‑tureen.

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
Provides the main body of meat, which is cooked by boiling and then stewing in butter.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they gently heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Fresh butter
Carries the heat and adds richness, keeping the meat moist while it stews.
Madeira or sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce, balancing the wine and spices.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce over the fire until almost boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if they get too hot they scramble and turn grainy. Stopping just short of boiling keeps the sauce smooth.

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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