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Drink

A Most Pleasant Drink

A warm beverage made from cranberries, water, oatmeal, lemon peel, sugar, sherry, egg, milk, rose water, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Most Pleasant Drink

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cranberry base

  1. Mash the cranberries in a cup of water.

  2. Boil 2 quarts of water with 1 tablespoon of oatmeal and a bit of lemon peel.

  3. Add the mashed cranberries and sugar to taste, then add ¼ cup of sherry.

  4. Boil for 30 minutes and strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the fresh egg and mix it with ¼ cup of warmed milk, 1 tablespoon of capillaire, 1 tablespoon of rose water, and a little grated nutmeg.

  2. Do not warm the mixture after adding the egg.

  3. Consume this drink first and last thing.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Rose + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 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

Cranberries
Provide the tart fruit flavour and colour that the drink is built on.
Egg
Adds body and a silky richness when beaten into the liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the sharpness of the cranberries and sherry.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a dry, winey note to the fruit.
Oatmeal
Lends a mild starchy body to the boiled liquid.

The step that matters

Do not warm the mixture after adding the egg. Heating beaten egg past about 70°C causes it to set and curdle, leaving lumps instead of a smooth drink.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, sherry, egg, milk, rose. 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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