Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Whey
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Beat the egg until frothy.
Sweeten the egg with the sugar.
Make the curd
Add the sweetened egg to the warm milk.
Stir in the Fairchild's Essence of Pepsine.
Let the mixture stand until it curdles.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the pepsine curdles into solid curds.
- Fairchild's essence of pepsine
- Enzyme that causes the milk proteins to coagulate and separate into curds.
- Egg
- Adds protein and richness to the mixture as it is combined with the milk.
- White sugar
- Adds sweetness to the egg before it is mixed into the milk.
The step that matters
Let the mixture stand until it curdles. The enzyme needs time to work on the milk proteins. Stopping early leaves the milk liquid and only partly set, so wait until the curds clearly separate from the whey.
“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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