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Arrowroot Custabd

A custard made with arrowroot, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and milk work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 817 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Arrowroot Custabd

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the arrowroot with the cold milk in a teacup.

  2. Boil the quart of milk in a saucepan.

  3. Beat the eggs in a bowl and mix in the arrowroot mixture.

  4. Pour the boiling milk into the egg and arrowroot mixture while stirring continuously.

  5. Return the mixture to the saucepan and boil again as directed.

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. Arrowroot + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

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

  3. Arrowroot + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard without making it cloudy.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the custard as it is heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling milk into the egg mixture while stirring continuously. Adding hot milk too fast or without constant stirring can scramble the eggs. Stirring keeps the eggs evenly tempered so the custard stays smooth.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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