Skip to main content
Drink

Ale, Spiced

A warm beverage made by boiling ale with nutmeg, then adding beaten eggs and butter or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,377 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Ale, Spiced

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil 1 quart of good ale with some nutmeg.

  2. Beat 6 eggs and mix them with a little cold ale.

  3. Pour the hot ale into the egg mixture, returning it several times to prevent curdling.

  4. Warm the mixture and stir until it thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Add a piece of butter or a glass of brandy.

  2. Serve with dry toast.

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. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Nutmeg and egg 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

Eggs
Thicken the warm ale into a smooth, custard-like body as they set.
Ale
Provides the main liquid and the characteristic bitter, malty flavor of the drink.
Butter or brandy
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the finished drink.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot ale into the eggs. Adding hot liquid to eggs too quickly can scramble them. Mixing in small amounts first and returning the mixture several times gradually raises the temperature so the eggs thicken smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter. 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.

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes