Why it works: Orange and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Egg Follies
Ingredients
Directions
Separate the egg white and yolk. Place the yolk in cold water for future use.
Beat the egg white with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form.
Prepare the fruit by sweetening it with twice the amount of sugar as you would normally use. Let fresh fruit sit to release juice.
Slowly stir the sweetened fruit into the beaten egg white until evenly mixed and colored.
Serve the folly with a generous tablespoon of golden custard made from the egg yolk.
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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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + orangetop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,696 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Lemonfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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