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Drink

Caudle

Caudle is a warm gruel drink sweetened with nutmeg, white wine, and lemon, sometimes thickened with an egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Caudle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gruel

  1. Make the gruel and strain it through a sieve.

  2. Stir the gruel until cold.

Season and finish

  1. Sweeten to taste.

  2. Grate in some nutmeg.

  3. Add a little white wine.

  4. Add lemon peel or juice if desired.

  5. If using, stir in a well-beaten egg when the gruel is boiling.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Nutmeg + white winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Gruel
Forms the base and body of the drink.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity and a light fruity aroma.
Lemon peel or juice
Adds brightness through acidity and aromatic citrus oils.
Egg
Thickens and enriches the liquid as its proteins set when heated.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten egg. Egg proteins set when heated, so an egg added to boiling gruel can scramble into lumps unless it is stirred steadily as it goes in. Stirring spreads the egg through the liquid so it thickens it smoothly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, lemon, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, lemon, 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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