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To Keep Cider

A method for preserving cider by fermenting it with sugar, egg whites, salt, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Keep Cider

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cider

  1. Dissolve 1 pound of sugar in 1 gallon of cider.

  2. Add the beaten egg whites and coarse sea salt.

Ferment and finish

  1. Leave the mixture open until fermentation ceases, then seal it tightly.

  2. Allow the mixture to ferment to your taste.

  3. Add 1½ tumblers of grated horseradish and mix well.

  4. After a few weeks, rack off the cider and seal it in clean casks.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Egg + horseradishtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together694 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Sugar + horseradishtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Feeds the fermentation, which turns sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Egg whites
Beaten whites help clarify the cider as particles bind and settle out.
Grated horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that mellows and carries through the fermented cider.

The step that matters

Leave the mixture open until fermentation ceases, then seal it tightly. Sealing too early can trap fermentation gases and stall or spoil the batch, while leaving it open too long lets airborne microbes spoil the cider. Timing the seal to the end of active fermentation keeps the cider stable.

Swap the horseradish

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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