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Dessert

Beignets a L’eau

Fried dough pieces made from a batter of water, wine, spices, butter, and egg yolks, served with sifted sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beignets a L’eau

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Boil water with cinnamon, lemon peel, Rhenish wine, coriander seeds, and sugar for 10 minutes.

  2. Add butter and stir until melted.

  3. Strain the mixture into enough flour to form a batter.

  4. Return to heat and simmer gently.

  5. Add egg yolks and mix well.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard until boiling, then drop in pieces of the batter the size of a damson.

  2. Fry until light brown, drain, and serve with sifted sugar on top.

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 + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cinnamon + coriandertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Forms the batter that holds its shape and sets around the frying oil.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help bind it, giving a richer texture when fried.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the batter, softening its texture.
Rhenish wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the batter's flavour.

The step that matters

Simmering the batter after adding the flour. Returning the strained mixture to heat and simmering it gently cooks the flour and thickens the batter, so it holds its shape when dropped into hot fat. Overheating or boiling it hard can change its texture.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, lemon, wine, sugar, butter, flour, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, lemon, wine, sugar, butter, flour, 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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