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Drink

Orange Bichof

A fermented beverage made from bitter oranges, white wine, honey, sugar, spices, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Orange Bichof

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oranges

  1. Cut the bitter oranges into quarters and lightly score the rind with a knife.

  2. Grill the orange pieces over a slow fire.

  3. Place the grilled oranges in an earthenware cooking vessel with the white wine.

  4. Close the vessel tightly and let it infuse overnight in warm ashes.

  5. Strain the mixture and add the sugar and grated nutmeg.

Make the mead

  1. In a separate pot, stir the honey and egg whites into the water.

  2. Add the cloves, mace, cinnamon, ginger, and rosemary, then simmer for one hour.

  3. When cool, transfer to a suitable vessel and add the yeast.

  4. Allow fermentation to occur naturally until it stops.

Age

  1. Store the mead in a cool place and do not bottle until six months later.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. White wine + honeytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together157 recipes

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

  5. White wine + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,715 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Honey
Provides the fermentable sugar that yeast turns into alcohol, and the main body of the mead.
Egg whites
Bind and draw out impurities, which rise to the surface during simmering and can be skimmed off.
Bitter oranges
Contribute aromatic oil and bitterness from the rind, flavouring the mead.
White wine
Adds acidity and extra flavour to the infusion of the oranges.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

The step that matters

Letting fermentation run until it stops. Yeast must consume the sugars fully for the mead to be stable; if it is bottled while still active, pressure can build and bottles may burst. Keeping it cool slows activity and helps the mead settle.

Swap the bitter orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, sugar, nutmeg, honey, egg, clove, mace):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Bitter orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, sugar, nutmeg, honey, egg, clove, mace. 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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