Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
To Clarify Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Break the sugar into pieces.
In a preserving pan, mix the egg white and 1 glass of spring water with a whisk, adding another glass of water while whipping until you have 2 quarts of water.
Clarify
When the pan is full of froth, add the sugar and place it on the fire.
Skim off the scum as it rises while the sugar boils.
If the sugar rises too high, add a little cold water to lower it.
Repeat skimming three or four times until only a whitish light scum remains.
Strain
Remove the pan from heat and pour the sugar through a slightly wetted napkin over a basin.
Set aside the scum in a china basin and wash the pan and skimmer with a glass of water, adding it to the scum.
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 + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the syrup that is clarified; it is the main body of the final liquid.
- Egg white
- Its proteins coagulate when heated and trap impurities, lifting them into a scum that can be skimmed off.
- Spring water
- Dissolves the sugar and carries the egg white so it can froth and gather impurities.
The step that matters
Skimming while the sugar boils. Egg white proteins set into a scum that traps impurities. If the syrup boils over, it spills and loses sugar, so cold water is added to lower it and the scum must be removed as it rises.
“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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