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Mint Punch

A chilled mint-flavored punch made with water, sugar, lemon and orange juice, egg white, and crème de menthe.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mint Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the punch

  1. In a large bowl, combine water, sugar, lemon juice, and orange juice.

  2. Freeze the mixture until it is almost solid.

Add the egg white and finish

  1. Beat the egg white until frothy and add it to the mixture.

  2. Stir in the crème de menthe and finish freezing.

  3. Pack the punch for 1 hour before serving in glasses.

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

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

  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 + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

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

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

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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the icy texture by lowering the freezing point.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and brightens the flavour.
Orange juice
Adds citrus aroma and acidity to the punch.
Egg white
Frothed, it adds air and a light, foamy texture to the punch.
Crème de menthe cordial
Provides the mint flavour that defines the punch.

The step that matters

Freeze until almost solid before adding the egg white. The mixture needs to be partly frozen so the frothed egg white holds its air and blends in as a light, slushy texture. If it is fully frozen or still liquid, the froth will collapse or not combine well.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, 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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