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 ↓
Porter Sangaree
Ingredients
Directions
Dissolve the sugar in the water in a tumbler.
Fill the tumbler with freshly opened porter.
Grate a little nutmeg on top.
Stir gently and enjoy.
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
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the bitterness of the porter.
- Porter
- Provides the base liquid, with its malty, roasted flavour and body.
- Nutmeg
- Adds a warm, aromatic note on the surface of the drink.
“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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