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Drink

Ice Punch, As in Italy

A chilled drink made with sherbet, lemon, egg whites, rum, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Ice Punch, As in Italy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Make a rich sherbet.

  2. Grate sugar on a lemon or citron for flavor.

  3. Beat the egg whites to a froth.

  4. Gradually stir the egg whites into the sherbet.

  5. Add rum and ice.

  6. Serve in glasses.

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. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + rumtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Egg + rumtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

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

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they add a light, airy texture to the punch.
Sherbet
Provides the sweet, fruity base that the rest of the punch is built on.
Rum
Adds its distinct aroma and flavor to the finished punch.

The step that matters

Gradually stir the egg whites into the sherbet. Adding the whipped whites slowly helps them blend in without deflating. Pouring them in all at once can collapse the foam and leave the punch less light.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, rum):

  1. Pineapplefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, rum. 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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