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Drink

Egg Wine

A warm drink made by whisking an egg with cold water, adding hot sherry, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Egg Wine

Why it works: Sherry and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,246 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Egg Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the egg

  1. Beat the egg with the cold water.

Combine and heat

  1. Heat the sherry and water mixture until hot but not boiling.

  2. Pour the hot mixture onto the egg while stirring continuously.

  3. Add sugar and grated nutmeg to taste.

  4. Transfer everything to a clean saucepan, place it on low heat, and stir.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

  5. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Thickens gently as its proteins set with heat, giving the drink body.
Sherry
Provides the main wine flavour and aroma.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sherry.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot mixture onto the egg. Adding the hot liquid slowly while stirring warms the egg gradually. If it is poured too fast or left unstirred, the egg proteins can set in lumps, scrambling the drink instead of leaving it smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sherry, sugar. 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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