Why it works: Pepper and beer work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 940 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Caudle for the Sick and Lying-in
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Set 3 quarts of water on the fire.
Mix enough oatmeal with 1 pint of cold water to create a smooth paste.
Make the caudle
When the water is boiling, pour in the oatmeal mixture and add the powdered Jamaica peppers.
Boil until it reaches a good middling thickness.
Add sugar, ½ pint of well-fermented table beer, and a glass of gin, then boil all ingredients together.
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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Pepper + beertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together940 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Sugar + gintop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together344 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Beer + gintop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together22 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Sugar + beertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together699 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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
- Oatmeal
- Thickens the water into a smooth, gruel-like body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the beer and gin.
- Well-fermented table beer
- Adds a light, tangy flavour and some body to the drink.
- Gin
- Adds alcohol and a botanical aroma to the caudle.
The step that matters
Boil until it reaches a good middling thickness. Oatmeal starch thickens as it gels in boiling water and keeps thickening as it cools. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while overcooking can make it stiff and pasty.
“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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