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Old Point Comfort Chicken Terrapin

A chicken terrapin made with boiled chicken, mushrooms, butter, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Old Point Comfort Chicken Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the chicken until tender.

  2. Remove the bones and return the meat to the broth.

  3. Thicken the broth with ½ cup butter rubbed in flour.

  4. Add the mushrooms, summer savory, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  5. Boil and stir until tender.

  6. Stir in the chopped yolks of the hard boiled eggs.

  7. Add the sweet cream 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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Summer savory + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 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

Butter
Rubbed into flour, it thickens the broth into a rich, smooth body.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Stirred in chopped, they add richness and a creamy, thickened texture.
Sweet cream
Added at the end, it adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Mushrooms
Simmered until tender, they add earthy flavor and substance to the stew.

The step that matters

Add the sweet cream and serve hot. Cream added to a boiling liquid can separate or turn grainy, so it is best stirred in at the end over gentle heat. Serving it hot keeps the sauce smooth and glossy.

Swap the summer savory

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, mushroom, pepper, egg, cream. 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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