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Food Drink

A chilled drink made from sweet milk, lemon juice, egg whites, and cream, served with nuts and raw wheat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Food Drink

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat the sweet milk quickly.

  2. Slowly add the juice of half a lemon.

Whip the egg whites

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Gradually beat in the cream.

Finish and serve

  1. Finally, mix in the juice of half a lemon.

  2. Serve with a few nuts and raw wheat for nourishment.

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Nuts + wheattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Lemon + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together585 recipes

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the other ingredients and gives the drink its body.
Egg whites
Whipping traps air in the proteins, creating a light, frothy foam that lightens the texture.
Cream
Adds fat, which gives the milkshake a richer mouthfeel and smoother texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness of the milk and cream.

The step that matters

Slowly add the juice of half a lemon. Acid can curdle milk proteins if it meets them in concentrated form. Adding the juice slowly and mixing well disperses it evenly, keeping the drink smooth.

Swap the nuts

The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, lemon, egg, cream, wheat):

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, egg, cream, wheat. 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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