Name: Italian Meringue {Used for Sorbets, Punch, Etc.}
Ingredients: ½ pound loaf sugar; ½ cup water; 3 egg whites

Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Italian Meringue {Used for Sorbets, Punch, Etc.}

Ingredients

½ pound loaf sugar
½ cup water
3 egg whites

Directions

Make the syrup

Dissolve the sugar in the water in a saucepan.
Boil until it reaches 240°F (115°C) on a candy thermometer.

Make the meringue

Gradually stir in the beaten egg whites until well combined.
Whisk until the mixture is stiff and glossy.

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.

Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Loaf sugar: Dissolves into a syrup that cooks to a set point, giving the meringue sweetness and structure.
Water: Dissolves the sugar so it can be boiled into a syrup of controlled concentration.
Egg whites: Trap air when whipped, forming the foam that gives the meringue its volume and stiffness.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup to 240°F (115°C). Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration before it is added to the whites. Too little boiling leaves a runny syrup that will not set the meringue, while overcooking makes it brittle and grainy.

“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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Italian Meringue {Used for Sorbets, Punch, Etc.}