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Drink

Cocoa Cordial

A warm drink made by mixing cocoa, sugar, boiling water, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cocoa and port wine work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Cocoa Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the cocoa and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add enough boiling water to form a paste.

  3. Stir in the remaining boiling water.

  4. Boil for one minute.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Add the port wine.

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. Cocoa + port winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Sugar + port winetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together805 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cocoa + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together956 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cocoa
Gives the cordial its chocolate flavour, deep colour and slight bitterness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cordial and balances the bitterness of the cocoa.
Port wine
Adds fruity, rich flavour and aroma to the finished cordial.

The step that matters

Add the port wine off the heat. Boiling drives off alcohol and much of the delicate aroma of port, so adding it after removing the pan from the heat keeps more of its flavour in the cordial.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, port wine):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, port 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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