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Drink

Mulled Wine

A warm alcoholic beverage made by heating wine with sugar, egg yolks, nutmeg, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mulled Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Heat the wine

  1. Boil the wine and water in a teakettle.

Make the egg mixture

  1. Beat the egg yolks.

  2. Add the sugar and grated nutmeg, stirring well.

  3. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  4. Fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture.

Combine

  1. Hold the teakettle high and pour the wine into the egg mixture while stirring constantly.

  2. Transfer the mixture between two pitchers until well combined.

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. 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. Sherry + sugartop 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

Madeira or sherry wine
Provides the main flavor and the liquid base of the drink.
Egg yolks
Add richness and body, and thicken the mixture as it warms.
Egg whites
Beaten to a foam, they lighten the texture of the finished drink.
Fine white sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the wine.
Grated nutmeg
Adds a warm, spiced aroma.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot wine into the egg mixture while stirring constantly. Eggs scramble when exposed to sudden heat. Adding the hot wine slowly while stirring constantly gradually warms the eggs, so the mixture stays smooth instead of curdling.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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