Name: Egg and Brandy Mixture
Ingredients: 3 eggs; ½ cup cold water; ½ cup brandy; sweetener to taste; nutmeg (optional)

Why it works: Brandy and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,311 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Egg and Brandy Mixture

Ingredients

Directions

Beat the eggs in a bowl until frothy.
Add the cold water and mix well.
Stir in the brandy and sweeten to taste.
Optionally, add a little nutmeg.
Serve a tablespoonful at a time as directed.

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.

Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,311 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together24,744 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,340 recipes

Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs: Provide structure and body, thickening the mixture as they are beaten and held together.
Brandy: Adds aroma and warmth, and helps the mixture stay loose and pourable.

“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.