Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Made of Milk
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Boil half of the milk.
In a bowl, beat the eggs.
Make the pudding
Slowly pour the boiling milk into the eggs while stirring continuously.
Strain the mixture.
Add the remaining cold milk, sugar, and flavoring to the strained mixture.
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 + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 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
- Provides the liquid and milk proteins that set into a creamy custard.
- Eggs
- Coagulate with gentle heat to thicken the pudding and give it structure.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and softens the texture of the set custard.
The step that matters
Slowly pour the boiling milk into the eggs while stirring continuously. Adding hot milk gradually, with constant stirring, tempers the eggs by slowly raising their temperature. Pouring too fast can scramble the egg proteins into lumps instead of a smooth, thickened custard.
“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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