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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

A milk pudding thickened with corn starch, topped with a browned meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Delmonico Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix corn starch with a little cold milk.

  2. Add egg yolks and 4 tablespoons of sugar to the corn starch mixture.

  3. Bring milk to a boil and stir in the corn starch mixture.

  4. Cook thoroughly until thickened.

Top and chill

  1. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks and gradually add 4 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pudding and lightly brown it.

  3. Chill the pudding in the refrigerator before serving.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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 starch thickens into a custard.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the pudding its body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and add richness and extra thickening.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that sets into a light, airy meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Cook thoroughly until thickened. Corn starch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil and is cooked through. Undercooking leaves a thin texture and 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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