Why it works: Sugar and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 23,364 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Ale Sangaree
Ingredients
Directions
Make the drink
Pour the boiling hot ale into a small jug.
Add the icing sugar and mix well.
Serve
Serve in a tumbler and dust with grated nutmeg.
For a summer drink, use cold ale and add a small lump of ice.
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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Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together23,364 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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
- Ale
- Forms the bulk of the drink and supplies its malty, slightly bitter flavour.
- Icing sugar
- Adds sweetness, and its fine powder dissolves quickly in hot liquid.
The step that matters
Add the icing sugar and mix well. Icing sugar is very finely ground, so it dissolves fast in hot ale. Stirring until no grains remain keeps the drink smooth and evenly sweet rather than gritty at the bottom.
“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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