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Dessert

Arrow-root Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with arrow-root, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, nutmeg, and lemon peel, baked in a pastry shell.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Arrow-root Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Mix in the arrow-root to create a thick batter.

  3. Add the egg yolks, sugar, butter, nutmeg, and lemon peel; stir well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pastry shell and bake until set.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, adding sugar to sweeten.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites over the pudding and return to the oven to brown.

  3. Once baked, decorate the top with slips of citron.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Arrow-root
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable custard-like set.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the custard set as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that browns on top for a light, crisp finish.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer texture and mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the arrow-root thickens.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks with sugar so they hold their shape and brown evenly. Underbeaten whites weep and sink into the pudding.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, butter, lemon. 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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