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Drink

Cream Nectar

A sweetened, egg‑white beverage flavored with tartaric acid and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cream Nectar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in water.

  2. Boil the mixture down to 2 quarts.

  3. Add the egg white while boiling.

  4. Strain the mixture and add tartaric acid.

Finish and bottle

  1. Once cold, add lemon juice to taste.

  2. Bottle and cork the mixture.

  3. Shake 2-3 times a day.

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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

What each ingredient does

Crushed sugar
Provides sweetness and body, and thickens the syrup as it boils down.
Egg white
Added while boiling, it coagulates and carries impurities to the surface so they can be removed.
Tartaric acid
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and helps keep the syrup stable.
Lemon juice
Adds further acidity and fresh aroma to balance the sugar.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture down to 2 quarts. Boiling reduces the water and concentrates the sugar, which sets the final body and sweetness. Stopping too early leaves the syrup thin and watery, while over-reducing makes it too thick and sweet.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

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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