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Drink

Egg and Wine

A chilled beverage made from egg white, yolk, powdered sugar, sherry wine, and optional ice, garnished with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Egg and Wine

Why it works: Sherry and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,246 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Egg and Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the egg white into a plate and the yolk into a tumbler.

  2. Beat the yolk with powdered sugar until creamy.

  3. Add sherry wine (or brandy or rum) to the yolk and mix well.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg white until stiff and fold it into the yolk mixture until combined.

  2. If desired, add chopped ice to the yolk mixture.

  3. Grate nutmeg over the top and serve very cold.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Egg white
Whipped until stiff, it adds a light, airy foam to the drink.
Egg yolk
Makes the drink rich and creamy as it is beaten with the sugar.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the drink and dissolves easily into the beaten yolk.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and a warm, aromatic flavour to the drink.

The step that matters

Beat the egg white until stiff. Egg white only holds air when it is beaten until stiff and folded in gently. Under-beaten white stays runny and the drink loses its foam, while overmixing can deflate it.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, sherry. 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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