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Roman Punch

A chilled champagne punch with lemon, orange, sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Roman Punch

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Roman Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Grate the yellow rinds of the lemons and oranges over the loaf sugar.

  2. Squeeze the juice from the lemons and oranges into the mixture.

  3. Cover and let it stand overnight.

  4. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Finish the punch

  1. Add the champagne and beaten egg whites.

  2. Optionally, freeze the punch.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + champagnetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Lemon + champagnetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Lemons
Provide the main acidity and bright citrus flavor, and the juice balances the sugar.
Oranges
Add sweet citrus flavor and aroma from their juice and zest.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the punch and draws oils and flavor from the citrus rinds as it stands.
Champagne
Supplies the sparkling wine base and its aroma to the punch.
Egg whites
Add a light, foamy texture and softness to the finished punch.

The step that matters

Let it stand overnight. Resting the zest in sugar and juice draws aromatic oils out of the rinds and dissolves the sugar, so the flavor develops before straining and adding the champagne.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Pineapplefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, champagne, 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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