Name: A Nourishing Fillip
Ingredients: 4 whole eggs; 3 lemons; 2 saccharine tablets; 1 pint cold milk; 1 pint brandy

Why it works: Milk and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,737 recipes mention both. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Place the eggs in a bowl with the lemon juice, cover, and let sit for three days, turning them over daily.
Once the shells are dissolved, beat the eggs and lemon juice together well.
Strain the mixture into a jug, then add the saccharine tablets and brandy.
Finally, stir in the cold milk.
Bottle the mixture and store for use.
Take 1 glass twice a day.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Milk + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Lemon + milktop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together19,048 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + brandytop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together7,330 recipes

Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
Egg + milktop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together88,465 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together43,327 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

Vanillabetter flavor fit
Currantbetter flavor fit
Figbetter flavor fit
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).