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Drink

To Mare Capillaire

A preserved liquid made from sugar, orange flower water, lemon, spices, spring water, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

To Mare Capillaire

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Mix the sugar, orange flower water, lemon juice, lemon rind, cloves, mace, cinnamon, spring water, and beaten egg whites in a large pot.

  2. Heat the mixture over a fire and bring it to a boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag.

Bottle

  1. Preserve the liquid in small bottles, sealing them tightly with corks.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  3. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Orange + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Lump sugar
Forms the bulk of the syrup and provides sweetness and body once cooled.
Whites of eggs
Coagulate when boiled and collect impurities, which the jelly bag then removes to clarify the liquid.
Lemons
Add acidity and fragrant oil from the rind to balance the sweetness.
Orange flower water
Adds a delicate floral aroma that defines the flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling with egg whites. Egg whites must be fully beaten into the liquid before heating. As the mixture comes to a boil, the proteins set and rise with the impurities. Straining through the jelly bag then leaves a clear syrup. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the liquid cloudy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange, lemon, clove, cinnamon, 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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