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Chicken Terrapin

Chicken Terrapin is a stew of chicken, giblets, eggs, and cream flavored with cayenne, salt, mace, and sherry.

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 ↓

Chicken Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Boil the chicken with the giblets until tender, then set aside to cool.

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

Make the terrapin

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

  2. Set the stewpan on the stove and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the meat is hot and everything is well combined.

  3. Add the sherry or Madeira 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. 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 of meat that the dish is built around.
Eggs
Chopped hard-boiled eggs add body and a rich, soft texture to the mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the broth and cream into a cohesive sauce as it heats.
Sherry or madeira
Adds aromatic depth and a subtle sweetness and acidity to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sauce's flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Simmer after adding the flour. Flour thickens liquids only when heated enough for its starch to swell. Simmering gently for the stated time cooks out the raw floury taste and lets the sauce thicken evenly without scorching on the base of the pan.

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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