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Drink

Mint Punch

A chilled beverage made with lemon juice, orange juice, beaten egg, and crème de menthe.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Mint Punch

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine lemon juice and orange juice in a bowl.

  2. Just before freezing, stir in the beaten egg.

  3. Add the crème de menthe and finish freezing.

  4. Pack the mixture for one hour.

  5. Serve in glasses.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Orange + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness that balances the sweetness.
Orange juice
Adds sweetness and fruit flavour as the base liquid.
Egg
Adds richness and body to the mixture.
Crème de menthe
Provides the mint flavour and sugar, which keeps the frozen punch softer.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten egg. Add the egg just before freezing, while the mixture is still liquid, and stir it in evenly. This disperses the egg so it does not form lumps or set in strands.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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