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 ↓
Blanc Mange
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
Dissolve the corn starch in a little milk and add it to the boiling milk.
Stir in the sugar and salt.
Add flavoring to taste.
Set and serve
Pour the mixture into a mold and let it set.
Serve with boiled custard or cream.
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.
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 creamy pudding.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the milk as its granules swell in heat, then firms into a set pudding as it cools.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the mild, starchy flavor of the milk.
The step that matters
Dissolving the corn starch. Starch clumps when it hits hot liquid dry or undispersed. Mixing it into a little cold milk first lets the granules separate, so they swell evenly when stirred into the boiling milk and thicken it smoothly.
“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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