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Drink

To Mull Ale

A warm ale drink mixed with eggs, spices, and served with toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and spirit work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 152 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Mull Ale

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mull

  1. Pour the ale into a saucepan with cloves or nutmeg and heat until boiling.

  2. Remove from heat.

  3. Beat the eggs and mix with a little cold ale.

  4. Gradually add the warm ale to the egg mixture, pouring back and forth to prevent curdling.

  5. Return to a low heat and warm gently, repeating the pouring process 3-4 times until hot and thick.

Serve

  1. Serve with dry 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.

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. Clove + spirittop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Clove + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,045 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Spirit + buttertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together87 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + eggtop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Clove and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,584 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

Ale
Provides the liquid base and bitter, malty flavour of the drink.
Eggs
Thicken the drink as they gently set with heat, giving it a creamy body.
Cloves or nutmeg
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour to the hot ale.

The step that matters

Adding the warm ale to the eggs. Pouring the hot ale into the beaten eggs slowly, while stirring or pouring back and forth, lets the eggs warm gradually. Adding it too fast or with the mixture too hot can scramble the eggs and cause curdling.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, spirit, butter. 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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