Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Arrow-root Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
Dissolve the arrow-root in a small amount of cold milk, then stir it into the boiling milk.
Beat the eggs in a bowl, then add them to the mixture, stirring well.
Remove from heat and let cool slightly before serving with sauce.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Arrow-root
- Thickens the milk into a smooth, set pudding as it heats.
- Eggs
- Add richness and help the pudding set as it thickens.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the arrow-root thickens.
The step that matters
Stirring the arrow-root into the boiling milk. Arrow-root must be dispersed in cold milk first, otherwise it clumps. Adding it to boiling liquid and stirring keeps the starch smooth as it thickens.
“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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