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Custard Royal for Soup

A custard made with eggs, nutmeg, salt, and broth, baked until firm and then used as a base for soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Custard Royal for Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the eggs until light.

  3. Grate the nutmeg and mix it with the salt and broth.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until firm, like custard.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Cut into desired shapes.

  4. Place the custard in a dish.

  5. Pour soup over it.

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 + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Set and firm the custard as they cook, giving it structure.
Broth
Adds liquid and savory flavor, keeping the custard tender.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic flavor to the custard.

The step that matters

Bake until firm, like custard. Eggs set through gentle heat. Baking too hot or too long can make the custard curdle, puff and turn rubbery, so it should be removed once just firm.

“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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