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Drink

Sea Foam

A chilled pineapple, mint, and lemon drink with egg whites and carbonated water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sea Foam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Mix the chopped pineapple, lemon juice, and chopped mint leaves in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.

Make the foam

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gradually fold in the fruit mixture.

  3. Gently add the carbonated water and serve immediately.

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. Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

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

  2. Pineapple + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

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

  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

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to trap air, giving the dish its light, foamy structure.
Sugar
Dissolves into the fruit mixture, adding sweetness to balance the lemon's acidity.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple and balances the sugar.
Pineapple
Supplies the main fruit flavour and liquid to the base.
Carbonated water
Adds bubbles that lighten the foam's texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the fruit mixture gradually. Adding the fruit base to whipped egg whites all at once deflates the air bubbles that give the foam its volume. Folding gently in portions keeps the foam light.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, mint, 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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