Name: Orange Bitters
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons fresh egg yolk; 1 teaspoon gentian root; ¼ teaspoon Seville orange peel; 1 pint boiling water

Why it works: Egg and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 31% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,696 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Orange Bitters

Ingredients

2 tablespoons fresh egg yolk
1 teaspoon gentian root
¼ teaspoon Seville orange peel
1 pint boiling water

Directions

In a bowl, combine the egg yolk, gentian root, and Seville orange peel.
Pour the boiling water over the mixture.
Let it steep for 2 hours.
Strain the mixture and bottle it for use.

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.

Egg + orangetop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,696 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Egg and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,696 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

Fresh egg yolk: Adds body and a rich, emulsified texture to the infusion.
Gentian root: Provides the bitter backbone that gives the bitters their characteristic flavor.
Seville orange peel: Contributes aromatic citrus oils that give the bitters their bright fragrance.

“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.