Skip to main content

A Restorative

This recipe uses raw eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 7,330 recipes mention both. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl, shell included.

  2. Pour the lemon juice over the eggs to cover the shells.

  3. Let it sit until the shells dissolve.

  4. Beat the mixture well.

  5. Add sugar to taste and the brandy.

  6. Take 2 tablespoons at a time.

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.

  1. Egg + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together7,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  2. Sugar + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Egg + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,327 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together53,530 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together122,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 53,530 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, sugar, brandy):

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Raisinbetter flavor fit
  3. Currantbetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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).

You might also like

Illustration of Lemon WheyIllustrationLemon Whey33 recipesIllustration of Lemon WineIllustrationLemon Wine31 recipesIllustration of Lemon SquashIllustrationLemon Squash10 recipesIllustration of Lemon EssenceIllustrationLemon Essence8 recipes