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Maitrank — May Wine

A sweet wine infused with wood-roof sprigs and powdered sugar, optionally served with orange slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,046 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Maitrank — May Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gather the wood-roof sprigs and place them in a bowl or vessel.

  2. Add the powdered sugar to the sprigs.

  3. Pour the light wine over the mixture.

Steep and serve

  1. Cover and let it steep for 30 to 60 minutes.

  2. Serve with the orange slices, if using.

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. Wine + orangetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Wood-roof sprigs
Gives the drink its sweet, herbal aroma and flavor as it steeps.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves readily into the wine.
Light wine
Acts as the liquid that draws flavor and aroma out of the herb.

The step that matters

Timing the steep. Herbs release their aroma within the first part of steeping, but leaving them too long can extract bitter compounds, so check the flavor near the shorter end of the 30 to 60 minute range.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, wine):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, wine. 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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