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Coffee, Chocolate, Etc.

A chilled drink made from sugar, orange rind, orange juice, lemon juice, and Cognac brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Coffee, Chocolate, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, orange rinds, and water in a pot.

  2. Boil for 3 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix the strained juice of China oranges and lemon juice with the brandy.

  2. Serve chilled.

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

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

  2. Orange + cognac brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lemon + cognac brandytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the sharpness of the citrus juices.
China orange rinds
Add fragrant orange oils to the syrup, giving aroma and flavor.
China orange juice
Adds fruity acidity and body to the cocktail.
Lemon juice
Adds sharp acidity that brightens and balances the sweetness.
Cognac brandy
Provides the spirit base, adding warmth and aroma to the drink.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange, cognac brandy. 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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