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Parisian Roman Punch

A punch made with tea, lemon zest, sugar, rum, oranges, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Parisian Roman Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Soak the tea in ½ cup of water overnight.

  2. Rub the zest from the lemons into the loaf sugar until absorbed.

  3. Dissolve the sugar in 3 cups of boiling water and let it cool.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the sliced oranges, lemon juice, 1 pint of water, and whisked eggs to the cooled mixture.

  2. Stir in the rum and strain the soaked tea into the bowl.

  3. Serve in a bowl or freezer over broken ice.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Tea + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together333 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

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

  5. Tea + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whisked eggs add body and a silky, slightly rich texture to the punch.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the punch and balances the acidity of the lemon and orange juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the punch and balances the sweetness.
Tea
Provides tannins that add a light astringency and depth of flavour.
Rum
Adds alcohol and aroma, rounding out the flavour of the punch.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Pineapplefits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, lemon, sugar, egg, rum. 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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