Why it works: Wine and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,918 recipes. Both carry 2-heptenal, which smells green. The science ↓
Wine, Fining of
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fining mixture
Draw 1 gallon of wine.
Mix 1 quart of the wine with the whites of 4 eggs using a whisk.
Pour the mixture back into the cask through the bunghole.
Fine the wine
Stir the whole cask in a rotary direction with a clean stick through the bunghole.
Pour in the remaining wine until the cask is full.
Stir again and skim off any bubbles that rise to the surface.
Close the bunghole and let it stand for 3 to 4 days.
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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Wine + eggtop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,918 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg whites
- Egg white proteins bind to tannins and haze particles, carrying them down so the wine clears.
The step that matters
Stirring the whole cask evenly. The egg white mixture must be spread through the entire volume so every part of the wine is fined. Uneven mixing leaves cloudy pockets where the fining agent did not reach the haze.
“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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