Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and 122,807 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
The Home Cook Book
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Combine milk, a little salt, and one tablespoon corn starch.
Heat the mixture, thickening the milk with the corn starch, and let it come to a boil.
Stir the thickened mixture into the other ingredients.
Bake and top
Pour the mixture into a pie plate covered with a good paste and bake it.
Beat the whites of three eggs to a froth, with a tablespoon of sugar.
Lay the frothy egg whites over the top of the pie.
Set the pie again in the oven for a few seconds to brown.
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. See the original page.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together7,168 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + eggtop 26% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together7,484 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Corn starch
- Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the custard its body.
- Eggs
- Whites whip into a foam for the topping, and the yolks help the custard set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the whipped egg whites that form the browned topping.
The step that matters
Bringing the thickened milk to a boil. Corn starch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil. Stopping early leaves the custard thin and can leave a raw starchy taste.
“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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