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Drink

Egg-nogg

A chilled drink made with egg yolk, sugar, rum or brandy, milk or whipped cream, topped with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rum and nutmeg work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 646 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Egg-nogg

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the yolk of the egg with the sugar until very light.

  2. Add the beaten egg white and stir well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a glass.

  4. Add the rum or brandy and fill the glass with milk or whipped cream.

  5. Top with grated nutmeg.

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. Rum + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Rum + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Egg
Yolk and white add richness, body and a creamy, foamy texture to the drink.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and helps the beaten yolk become light and smooth.
Rum or brandy
Adds alcoholic warmth and a distinctive aroma to the drink.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and dilutes the egg mixture into a drinkable texture.

The step that matters

Beating the yolk with the sugar until very light. Beating dissolves the sugar into the yolk and incorporates air, producing a smooth, light texture. Under-beaten yolk leaves grainy sugar and a dense, uneven drink.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, rum, milk. 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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