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
Dissolve the sugar in water.
Add the egg white and beat well.
Pour the mixture into a preserving kettle over heat.
Clarify
Stir with a granite spoon until it boils.
Add a little cold water and let it boil again.
Remove the scum and repeat until clear.
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 and provides the sweetness of the final liquid.
- Egg white
- Binds impurities as it cooks, so they rise as scum that can be removed.
The step that matters
Remove the scum and repeat until clear. The egg white coagulates as the syrup boils, trapping impurities at the surface. Skimming all of the scum before the next boil matters, because any left behind will cloud the syrup. Repeating the cycle until the liquid is clear gives a bright result.
“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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