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Drink

Egged Wine

A hot beverage made by whisking eggs with sugar, nutmeg, cloves, and sherry, then heating until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Egged Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the egg mixture

  1. Beat the eggs in a small basin until thoroughly mixed.

  2. Add the sugar, nutmeg, and cloves to the eggs and mix well.

Make the drink

  1. Heat the sherry and water in equal parts until boiling hot.

  2. Stir the hot mixture into the egg mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture back and forth between the saucepan and basin until it thickens.

  4. If it doesn't thicken, heat it again while stirring until it does.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + sherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,237 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

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
Thicken the drink as they set with the heat, giving it a creamy body.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sherry and the spices.
Sherry
Provides the wine base and its distinct flavour in the drink.

The step that matters

Stirring the hot mixture into the egg mixture. Adding hot liquid to eggs too quickly can scramble them. Pouring slowly while whisking gradually warms the eggs so they thicken smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, nutmeg, sherry. 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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