Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Ginger-beer Powders
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Finely powder the loaf sugar, ginger, and carbonate of soda.
In a tumbler half full of water, add the tartaric acid.
Prepare the first ingredients in a similar quantity of water.
Combine and drink
Pour one mixture into the other and drink during the effervescence.
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 + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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
- Carbonate of soda
- Reacts with the tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide, producing the effervescence.
- Tartaric acid
- Acid that reacts with the carbonate of soda to create the fizz when the two mixtures meet.
- Loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the acid.
- Ginger
- Provides the spiced, aromatic flavour characteristic of ginger beer.
The step that matters
Pour one mixture into the other and drink during the effervescence.. The fizz comes from carbon dioxide released when the acid and carbonate meet in water, and it fades quickly. Combining and drinking promptly keeps most of the gas in the drink.
“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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