Why it works: Syrup and sugar 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 ↓
Nonpareils
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Warm the pulverized orris-root in a pan over gentle heat.
Moisten the powder with the syrup using your hands to form small grains.
Build the grains
Gradually increase the amounts of syrup and sift the nonpareils to remove small particles and dust.
Repeat the sifting often with sieves of different sizes.
Dry and finish
Place the nonpareils in the oven to dry, increasing their size daily with the finest sugar.
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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Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,842 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Florence orris-root
- Forms the powder that is worked up into the small grains.
- Syrup boiled to a pearl
- Binds the powder into grains that harden as they dry.
- Finest sugar
- Coats the grains during drying, adding sweetness and enlarging them.
The step that matters
Adding the syrup gradually. Syrup must be added in small amounts so the powder takes it up evenly and forms small grains. Adding too much at once creates clumps that sifting cannot easily correct, and it can dissolve the powder instead of binding it into separate grains.
“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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