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Dessert

Arrow-root Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with arrowroot, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, nutmeg, lemon peel, and topped with citron.

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, grated nutmeg, and lemon peel. Mix well.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the mixture into a pastry shell and bake until done.

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

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Sweeten the egg whites with sugar, and flavor to taste.

  5. Spread the beaten egg whites over the pudding.

  6. Return to the oven for a few minutes to brown.

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 batter that sets the pudding's body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set firm when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped and spread on top, they form a light meringue that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, smooth texture to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the whipped egg whites hold their stiff structure.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks to trap air and form a meringue that holds its shape and browns evenly. Under-whipped whites will weep or sink into the custard.

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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