Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Porter
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the moist sugar until it reaches a thick, syrupy consistency, perfectly black and extremely bitter.
Mix the coloring, cream of tartar, ground alum, salt of steel, and strong finings in a vat.
Stir the mixture thoroughly and leave the vat open for three days.
After three days, close the vat and sand it over.
In a fortnight, the porter will be ready for use.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + capsicumtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,560 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Capsicum + creamtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,129 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Moist sugar
- Caramelises when boiled, supplying the dark colour and bitter flavour of the porter.
- Coloring
- Adds colour to the finished porter.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the mixture, helping the brew settle and clarify.
- Strong finings
- Clarifies the liquor by causing suspended particles to clump and settle out.
The step that matters
Boiling the moist sugar. Sugar must be taken to a thick, black, bitter syrup without burning past that point. Over-boiling produces acrid, scorched flavours, while under-boiling leaves the colour and bitterness too weak.
Swap the capsicum
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream):
- Sweet potatofits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Leekfits about as well
- Capsicumthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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