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Drink

Egg Wine

A warm beverage made by cooking an egg with sugar, water, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Egg Wine

Why it works: Nutmeg and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Egg Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil water, sugar, and nutmeg in a saucepan.

  2. Gradually pour a little of the hot mixture into the beaten egg, stirring well.

  3. Return the egg mixture to the saucepan.

  4. Heat gently, stirring continuously for no more than one minute to avoid curdling.

Serve

  1. Serve warm with toast.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Egg
Thickens the warm liquid into a silky, lightly set custard as it heats.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the spice and the heat of the drink.
Water
Forms the liquid base that the sugar and nutmeg dissolve into.

The step that matters

Heat gently and stir constantly. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the mixture gets too hot or is heated too long it will curdle into lumps. Continuous stirring and a short, gentle heating time keep the custard smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Capersfits 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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