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Orgeat

A sweet almond-based syrup made with milk, almonds, sugar, brandy, and orange flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Orgeat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond milk

  1. Boil the milk with the cinnamon and sweeten to taste. Let it cool.

  2. Gradually pour the cooled milk into a mixture of blanched and beaten almonds and bitter almonds, adding a little water to prevent oiling.

  3. Boil the mixture together and stir until cool, then add the brandy.

  4. Alternatively, blanch and pound the almonds, then stir in the water and milk, and strain through a cloth.

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in a pint of water, boil and skim it, then mix with the strained almond mixture, adding orange-flower water and brandy.

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Almonds
Provide the nutty flavour and the body of the emulsion.
Milk
Carries the almond flavour and adds creaminess to the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve it.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps keep the syrup from spoiling.

The step that matters

Adding water to the almond mixture. Almonds release oil when pounded. A little water keeps the oil dispersed in the mixture so it does not separate and turn greasy.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cinnamon, sugar, almond, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, sugar, almond, brandy. 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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