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To Preserve Sweet Marjoram

Preserves fresh marjoram by coating with egg white and sugar, then drying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Preserve Sweet Marjoram

Ingredients

Directions

Make the coating

  1. Beat the egg white until frothy.

  2. Mix in the white sugar.

Coat and dry

  1. Rub fresh marjoram on a clean glass, shaping it to the glass's form.

  2. Spread the egg mixture over the marjoram.

  3. Sear the marjoram with the sugar on it.

  4. Place on paper to dry.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Egg + marjoramtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,261 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Sugar + marjoramtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Foams when beaten and sets into a thin, crisp coating around the marjoram.
White sugar
Sweetens the coating and browns into a glossy, crisp layer when heated.
Fresh marjoram
Provides the main flavor and aroma, and is the base the coating holds onto.

The step that matters

Sear the marjoram with the sugar on it.. Sugar melts and then browns quickly, and it can scorch within moments. Heat must be applied just long enough to melt and set the sugar into a crisp layer without burning it or the herb.

Swap the marjoram

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Marjoramthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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