No. 1089

Cutlets of Terrapin and Croquettes, Cream Sauce

Cotelettes de Terrapene et Croquettes Sauce Creme

Have a pound and a half of cooked and boneless terrapin, cut in half inch squares; put these on the fire in a stewpan, seasoning with salt and red pepper; heat well and thicken with egg-yolks, butter, and cream moistened with a little good sherry; let get partially cold and then mold in cutlet-shaped bottomless molds laid on a sheet of heavy buttered paper slightly larger than the mold itself, and set on level baking tins. Fill the molds to the top with terrapin, lay them on ice, and when the preparation is perfectly cold, unmold and dip the cutlets into beaten eggs, roll in bread-crumbs, then fry them in clarified butter; wipe and dress crown-shaped on folded napkins, garnishing the center with fried green parsley. If for croquettes mold the terrapin in timbale molds (No. 2, Fig. 137) and finish the same as the cutlets; serve a cream sauce (No. 545) separately.

← No. 1088 Terrapin, Maryland Club Terrapin No. 1090 Stewed Terrapin with Madeira Wine →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a Delmonico's kitchen recipe for a luxury ingredient that no longer belongs on a menu. The technique is a standard croquette method, but the main ingredient is the problem.

The terrapin itselfThe diamondback terrapin, Malaclemys terrapin, was hunted to commercial collapse by the early twentieth century. It is now protected to varying degrees across its range, with commercial harvest banned outright in most Atlantic and Gulf states, and the species has been listed on CITES Appendix II since 2013. A pound and a half of picked terrapin meat is not something a home cook can lawfully or ethically obtain.
Reptile handlingTurtles and terrapins are a well-documented reservoir of Salmonella, which is why the sale of small pet turtles has been federally restricted in the United States since the 1970s. Butchering and picking a live-cooked terrapin in a domestic kitchen carries a cross-contamination risk the original recipe makes no allowance for.
What to make insteadIf you want the dish rather than the ingredient, look up a current recipe for a bound seafood croquette. Do not attempt a substitution scaled off these quantities.
"Cooked and boneless terrapin"Ranhofer assumes the reader has already worked through his earlier terrapin entries (the page cross-refers to No. 1088). Nineteenth-century terrapin instructions generally involve scalding the animal, opening the shell and picking out the meat, liver and eggs while removing the gall bladder intact; the gall is bitter enough to spoil a batch, and warnings about it are common in period cookbooks.
Bottomless cutlet moldsThese were plain metal rings in a chop outline, set on buttered paper so the chilled mixture could be slid off without breaking. A ring mold on parchment does the same job; the paper is not optional, since the set mixture is fragile.
Clarified butterFrying breaded croquettes in whole butter scorches the milk solids well before the crust colors. Clarified butter, then as now, is the point of the instruction rather than an affectation.
Fried green parsleyA standard Victorian garnish: dry parsley sprigs dropped into hot fat for a few seconds until they stop hissing, then drained. They collapse quickly and were dressed at the last moment.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York (in two spells, from 1862), and its terrapin section runs to a series of numbered preparations because terrapin was, for roughly the second half of the nineteenth century, among the most fashionable American luxury foods there was. Diamondback terrapin had begun as cheap Chesapeake protein — it is often said that Maryland indentured servants and enslaved workers complained of being fed too much of it — before East Coast clubs and hotels turned it into a status dish served with Madeira or sherry, priced accordingly, and hunted until the population crashed. This particular entry shows the kitchen doing what luxury kitchens do with an expensive ingredient: stretching it, binding it with egg yolk and cream, molding it into cutlet shapes and crumbing it, so that a pound and a half of picked meat becomes a formal dressed course on a folded napkin. By the 1920s the supply had collapsed, and Prohibition is usually credited with removing the wine that traditionally accompanied it; the terrapin course never came back.