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Drink

Pick-me-ups

A collection of pick‑me‑up drinks made from ginger, lemon, cayenne, eggs, oatmeal, currants, and other ingredients.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Blandy, John · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Pick-me-ups

Ingredients

Directions

Make the claret drink

  1. Put a teaspoonful of ground ginger, a pint of water and a teaspoonful of beef extract into a stewpan and heat.

  2. Add a pint of good old claret and boil.

  3. Season to taste with salt; sugar may be used instead.

  4. Let cool a few degrees and whisk in 2 yolks of eggs.

  5. Drink slowly from a spoon.

Make the oatmeal drink

  1. Put 1 lb of coarsest oatmeal into 3 or 4 quarts of water and boil for a few minutes.

  2. Stir in a teaspoonful of beef extract.

  3. Season well with pepper and salt.

  4. Let cool.

  5. Drink a small teacupful occasionally during the night’s baking.

Make the currant cordial

  1. Crush 1 lb of red currants or strawberries.

  2. Add 2 quarts water, juice of 1 lemon, 1 lb sugar, and 1 ounce carbonate soda.

  3. Let stand 1 to 12 hours.

  4. Strain and put on ice.

  5. Drink half a glass when thirsty.

Make the ginger lemonade

  1. Add 1 oz ground ginger, a pinch of cayenne, 4 drops essence of lemon, a pinch of tartaric acid, and 1 lb sugar to 4 quarts of boiling water.

  2. Let cool and bottle.

  3. Drink hot or cold.

Bake and serve the meat pie

  1. Take 1 lb cold meat, no gristle, chop up and pound it fine.

  2. Boil and add a sheep's brains.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Stir in 1 good sized onion chopped fine and yolks of 3 eggs.

  5. Boil 1 lb rice nice and dry.

  6. Add 1 oz butter and a little grated nutmeg.

  7. Put into a shallow dish.

  8. Spread the minced meat upon it, drawing the rice up over it.

  9. Bake in a moderate oven.

  10. Eat with cauliflower and potatoes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

148Calories
8 gProtein
6 gFat
17 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Blandy, John. 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. See the original page.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  4. Onion + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the drink and enrich the body as they are whisked in while cooling.
Rice (in the method)
Cooked dry, it forms the starchy crust that holds the minced meat in the dish.
Butter (in the method)
Adds fat and richness to the rice layer, giving a softer, more savoury texture.
Sugar (in the method)
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of lemon and tartaric acid in the drink.
Red currants or strawberries (in the method)
Provide fruit flavour and acidity to the cooling currant drink.

The step that matters

Whisking yolks into the cooling claret. If the liquid is still too hot, the egg yolks can scramble rather than blend smoothly. Letting it cool a few degrees first lets the yolks thicken it gently.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, egg, ginger, 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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