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Punch, a LA Romaine

A chilled lemon punch with sugar, egg whites, syrup, kershwasser, maraschino, and Champagne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Punch, a LA Romaine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lemon base

  1. Peel the 12 lemons and soak them in fresh water.

  2. Rub the peel of 3 lemons on a lump of sugar to extract the essence.

  3. Squeeze the juice of the lemons onto the sugar with essence.

  4. Add spring water and sweeten with syrup to your taste or to 22 degrees on a saccharometer.

  5. Freeze the mixture and work it well.

Make the meringue and combine

  1. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Boil 1 lb of syrup to the feather stage and pour it over the egg whites while boiling, mixing well.

  3. Once cooled, combine this mixture with the frozen lemon ice.

Finish and serve

  1. When ready to serve, mix with 1 pint of kershwasser, 2 glasses of maraschino, and 1 pint of sparkling Champagne.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + champagnetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks and blended with hot syrup to give the punch a light, airy texture.
Lemons
Supply the juice for acidity and the peel for the essence that flavours the base.
Syrup
Sweetens the base and, boiled to the feather stage, stiffens the whipped egg whites.
Sparkling champagne
Adds bubbles and a lively, dry finish when mixed in at serving.
Maraschino
Adds a sweet, cherry-almond aroma and flavour to the punch.
Kershwasser
Adds a strong cherry-spirit aroma and alcoholic warmth to the punch.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling syrup into the egg whites. The syrup must be boiling hot and poured steadily while mixing, so it cooks the egg white proteins slightly and sets a stable, glossy foam. Cooling too early or pouring unevenly can deflate the whites.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, syrup, egg, champagne):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup, egg, champagne. 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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