Why it works: Sugar and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Mulled Claret
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the cloves and mixed spice in the water until the flavor is extracted.
Add the sugar and claret, then bring to a boil.
Heat the mixture in a saucepan or mull until hot.
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 + clovetop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together17,182 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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
- Claret
- Provides the main wine flavor, body and acidity of the drink.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and softens the wine's tannins and sharpness.
- Cloves
- Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the drink.
- Mixed spice
- Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor that blends with the cloves.
The step that matters
Simmering the spices in water. Spice flavor comes from aromatic oils that dissolve best in hot liquid. If the cloves and mixed spice are not boiled long enough, the drink will taste weak and under-spiced.
“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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