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Mock Terrapin

A chicken stew with eggs, sherry, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mock Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken with giblets until tender, then let it cool.

  2. Cut the chicken into small pieces, about ½ inch square.

Make the filling

  1. In a stewpan, combine the chicken, cayenne pepper, salt, mace, chopped eggs, chicken broth, cream, butter, and browned flour.

  2. Simmer on the stove for 10 minutes or until hot.

  3. Stir in the sherry wine before serving.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Chicken + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together891 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Chicken
Provides the main body and chewy meaty texture of the dish.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a silky texture.
Browned flour
Thickens the sauce and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until hot, then add the sherry. Simmering gently keeps the cream and eggs smooth, since high heat can make dairy curdle. Adding the sherry at the end preserves its aroma, which fades with prolonged cooking.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

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