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Drink

Egg Lemonade

A chilled beverage made with ice, powdered sugar, lemon juice, a fresh egg, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Egg Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fill 2-3 large bar glasses with fine ice.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar and the juice of 1 lemon.

  3. Crack 1 fresh egg into the glass.

Mix and serve

  1. Fill the glass with water and shake thoroughly.

  2. Strain into a thin lemonade glass and serve.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Fresh egg
Adds body and a silky, frothy texture to the drink.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the lemon's acidity.
Lemon juice
Provides the sour, bright flavour that defines the lemonade.

The step that matters

Shake thoroughly after adding the egg. Shaking vigorously with ice emulsifies the egg white and sugar into a smooth, frothy texture. Under-shaking leaves the egg unblended and the drink thin and uneven.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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