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 ↓
To Clarify Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Combine sugar and water in a pot.
Add the egg whites and bring to a boil.
Boil the mixture twice.
Clarify
Remove from heat and let it sit for impurities to rise.
Skim the impurities from the top carefully.
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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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Sugar
- Dissolves in the water to form the syrup, providing sweetness and body.
- Egg whites
- Coagulate as they heat, trapping impurities so they can be skimmed off the syrup.
The step that matters
Skimming the impurities carefully. As the egg white heats it coagulates into a raft that traps impurities. Skimming roughly or disturbing the surface can break this raft and mix the impurities back in, leaving the syrup cloudy.
“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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