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Drink

Cream Nectah

A sweet, frothy drink made from sugar, tartaric acid, water, egg whites, lemon essence, and syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cream Nectah

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine 3 pounds of refined sugar, 2 ounces of tartaric acid, and 1 quart of water.

  2. Heat the mixture until warm, then add the beaten egg whites, being careful not to let it boil.

  3. Once cool, strain the mixture and add 1 teaspoon of lemon essence.

Serve and store

  1. To serve, mix 2 tablespoons of the syrup with 1 glass of water and add ⅓ teaspoon of dissolved baking soda.

  2. Store in brass or porcelain; it will keep for a week on ice.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

Refined sugar
Provides sweetness and the bulk of the syrup body.
Tartaric acid
Adds acidity that gives the drink its sharp, bright flavour.
Whites of 2 eggs
Beaten whites are added to the warm syrup to help clarify and lighten it.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid when dissolved, producing fizz at serving.

The step that matters

Heat until warm, not boiling, after adding the egg whites. Boiling would cause the beaten egg whites to scramble and cook into curds rather than mix in and clarify the syrup, leaving it cloudy and uneven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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