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Drink

Ale Flip

A frothy ale-based beverage made by mixing boiled ale with beaten eggs, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Ale Flip

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil 1 quart of ale in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the egg whites separately in a bowl.

  3. Beat the egg yolks separately in a bowl.

Make the flip

  1. Mix the beaten eggs with 4 tablespoons of sugar and grated nutmeg.

  2. Gradually pour the boiling ale into the egg mixture while continuously beating.

  3. Pour the mixture back and forth between two jugs, raising one jug high above the other until smooth and frothy.

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Whites and yolks provide structure and body, thickening the drink as they are heated.
Ale
Forms the liquid base and adds its own bitter, malty flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the ale.

The step that matters

Gradually pour the boiling ale into the egg mixture while continuously beating.. Pouring hot ale too quickly into the eggs can scramble them. Adding it slowly while beating spreads the heat evenly, so the mixture thickens smoothly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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