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Stewed Terrapin

A stew of terrapin meat cooked with butter, egg yolk, Madeira or sherry, nutmeg, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the terrapins

  1. Boil the terrapins in water with a little salt until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Remove the shells.

  3. Extract the meat, discarding the sand-bag, gall, and entrails.

  4. Cut the meat into pieces.

Stew

  1. Place the pieces in a stew pan with its eggs and enough fresh butter to stew well.

  2. Cover the pan.

  3. Heat until hot throughout, shaking occasionally.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In another pan, make a sauce with the beaten egg yolk, Madeira or sherry, nutmeg, mace, and a large lump of fresh butter.

  2. Stir the sauce over the fire until it almost boils.

  3. Remove the sauce from heat.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sherry + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Terrapins
Form the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is stewed until tender.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, letting the meat stew gently without drying out.
Beaten egg yolk
Thickens the sauce and gives it a smooth, rich texture when gently heated.
Madeira or sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Powdered nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce until it almost boils. Egg yolk thickens when gently heated but curdles if it gets too hot, so the sauce must be stirred constantly and taken off the heat just before boiling.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sherry, nutmeg. 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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