Why it works: Milk and tea work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 738 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓
Egg Drinks
Ingredients
Directions
Make the drink
Beat the egg yolk with the sifted sugar and milk or cream.
Pour the tea or coffee into the mixture while stirring with one hand.
Gradually add the liquid while mixing to prevent curdling.
For cold drinks
For cold beverages, beat the egg white with the yolk, add sugar, and mix with the liquid.
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.
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Milk + teatop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together738 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + teatop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,204 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 yolk
- Adds richness and body, and its proteins help bind the drink into a smooth mixture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the drink and balances the bitterness of the tea or coffee.
- Milk or cream
- Adds fat that softens the flavor and makes the drink feel rounder and creamier.
- Egg white
- Whipping it with the yolk adds lightness and a frothy texture to cold drinks.
The step that matters
Add the hot liquid gradually while mixing. Egg yolk proteins set when heated quickly, so adding the hot tea or coffee slowly while stirring warms the yolk gently and prevents it from curdling into lumps.
“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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