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Tea for Invalids

A chilled tea drink mixed with egg yolk, sugar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and tea work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 738 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Tea for Invalids

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolk and sugar together well.

  2. Dilute the mixture with the cold milk.

  3. Slowly add the hot tea while stirring briskly.

  4. Serve immediately.

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 + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + teatop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,204 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Adds richness and body to the drink.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the tea's bitterness.
Milk
Adds creaminess and moisture, softening the tea's bite.
Tea
Provides the main flavor and aroma.

The step that matters

Slowly add the hot tea while stirring briskly. Hot liquid poured in all at once can scramble or lump the raw yolk. Adding it gradually while stirring constantly tempers the yolk so it blends smoothly into the drink.

“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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