Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
To Clarify Sugar, or Carmel
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine 2 quarts of water and 4 pounds of loaf sugar in a preserving pan.
Heat the mixture over a fire.
Clarify
When warm, add the beaten whites of 3 eggs.
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.
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Loaf sugar
- Dissolves into the water to form the sweet syrup that becomes the caramel.
- Egg whites
- Coagulate as the syrup heats, trapping impurities so they rise and can be skimmed off.
The step that matters
Adding the egg whites. Beaten whites stirred in while the syrup is warm coagulate as it heats. They trap impurities, which rise to the surface where they can be skimmed away, leaving a clearer syrup.
“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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