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Drink

Mulled Wine

A warm beverage made with German wine, sugar, lemon extract, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,157 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Mulled Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Warm the wine

  1. In a small saucepan, combine the wine, sugar, and lemon extract.

  2. Warm gently, but do not let it get hot.

Prepare the eggs

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolk with 2 teaspoons of sugar.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg white with 2 teaspoons of sugar until stiff peaks form.

  3. Fold the beaten egg white into the yolk mixture, then stir this into the warm wine mixture.

Heat and serve

  1. Set the saucepan over medium heat and beat with an egg beater until the foam begins to rise, but do not let it boil.

  2. Remove from heat, stir for a minute or two, then pour into a goblet and serve warm.

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. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Wine + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

German wine
Forms the liquid base and carries the spiced, fruity flavour of the drink.
Egg
Whipped white adds a light foam, and the yolk thickens the drink as it warms.
White granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilise the whipped egg white.
Lemon extract
Adds a bright citrus aroma to the wine.

The step that matters

Keep the wine mixture below boiling. Egg proteins set and curdle when overheated, so the mixture can turn grainy. Warming it gently keeps the egg smooth and evenly blended into the wine.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, 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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