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Nightcap

A late-night meal featuring ham, eggs, cucumber salad, roast meat, Gorgonzola, bouillon, salmon, asparagus, ox-tongue, capon, salad, cognac, and seltzer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 30 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,734 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyl acetate, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Nightcap

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the ham in 10 g of butter.

  2. Cook the eggs to your preference.

  3. Prepare mayonnaise with the egg yolk and 1 tablespoon of oil.

  4. Slice the raw cucumber and dress with vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper.

  5. Serve the cold roast meat with Gorgonzola cheese.

  6. Brew the tea and coffee, adding cream to the coffee.

  7. Heat the bouillon and add the marrow.

  8. Boil the salmon and serve with asparagus sautéed in 20 g of butter.

  9. Slice the smoked ox-tongue and serve with capon and salad dressed with vinegar and oil.

  10. Enjoy the cognac with Seltzer water.

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. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  2. Cucumber + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Tea + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when cooked and bind the mayonnaise emulsion through the yolk.
Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil into the mayonnaise, giving it a thick, smooth body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the ham and asparagus as it cooks.
Oil
Forms the fat base of the mayonnaise and dresses the cucumber and salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the cucumber and salad dressings.
Cream
Adds fat and softness to the coffee, mellowing its bitterness.

The step that matters

Prepare mayonnaise with the egg yolk and 1 tablespoon of oil.. Oil must be added slowly while whisking so the yolk can emulsify it; adding it too fast causes the mayonnaise to break and separate.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, tea, egg, butter, meat, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, tea, egg, butter, meat, vinegar, pepper. 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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