Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
To Clarify Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Break the sugar into small pieces and place it in a cleaned brass pan.
Pour the water over the sugar and let it sit for a while.
Clarify
Add the beaten egg white and stir until the sugar dissolves.
Bring to a boil, then add the cold water and let it boil again.
Settle and finish
Remove from heat and let it settle for 15 minutes.
Skim off the scum and return to heat, boiling until thickened.
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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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Loaf sugar
- Forms the syrup itself, providing all of the sweetness and body of the finished liquid.
- Egg white
- Coagulates when heated, trapping impurities so they can be skimmed off, leaving the syrup clear.
The step that matters
Skim off the scum. As the egg white cooks, it rises carrying impurities from the sugar. Removing this scum completely before reboiling is what keeps the syrup clear rather than cloudy.
“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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