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Drink

Yorkshire Punch

A citrus punch made with lemon, Seville orange, sugar, jelly, water, rum, brandy, clarified syrup, and shrub.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Yorkshire Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Rub the rind off the lemons into the sugar.

  2. Add the outer rind of one lemon and one Seville orange, along with the juices of the Seville oranges and lemons.

  3. Pour in the boiling water gradually, mixing well.

  4. Keep the mixture on a warm hearth for 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the sherbet and add the rum, brandy, clarified syrup, and shrub.

  2. Mix thoroughly before serving.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Rum + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the punch and draws oil from the rind when rubbed with it.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the punch its sharp flavour.
Seville orange juice
Adds acidity and a bitter citrus aroma that complements the lemon.
Rum
Adds alcohol and warming aromatic flavour to the punch.
Brandy
Adds alcohol and depth of fruity, aged flavour.
Calf's-foot jelly
Adds gelatin, giving the punch body and a slightly silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Pour in the boiling water gradually, mixing well. Adding boiling water all at once can unevenly dissolve the sugar and extract bitterness from the citrus rind unevenly. Gradual addition with mixing keeps the sugar fully dissolved and the flavour balanced.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, orange, rum, brandy, syrup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange, rum, brandy, syrup. 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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