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Drink

Panada

Panada is a drink made from wine, sugar, nutmeg, lemon peel, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Panada

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon 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 ↓

Panada

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, heat a little water with the white wine, sugar, nutmeg, and lemon peel.

  2. Once it boils, add the bread crumbs and keep boiling until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat when it reaches a drinkable consistency.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. White wine + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together827 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. White wine + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Their starch swells in the hot liquid, thickening the drink and giving it body.
White wine
Provides the main liquid and a tart, fruity flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the wine's acidity.
Lemon peel
Adds bright citrus aroma from the oils in the zest.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor.

The step that matters

Remove from heat at a drinkable consistency. Starch from the bread crumbs keeps absorbing liquid and thickening as it cooks. Boiling too long makes the drink stiff and pasty, so it should be taken off the heat once it reaches the desired texture.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, sugar, lemon, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, sugar, lemon, bread. 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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