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 ↓
Boiled Custard
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the milk in a double boiler until it is scalding hot.
Stir in the beaten eggs and sugar.
Cook according to the directions for gelatine custard.
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
- Eggs
- Set and thicken the custard as they cook, giving it body.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into custard.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and adds body to its texture.
The step that matters
Cook according to the directions for gelatine custard.. Egg custards thicken as the proteins in the eggs set with gentle heat. If the heat is too high or the custard cooks too long, the eggs can curdle and turn grainy. Keeping the heat gentle and stirring steadily helps keep the custard smooth.
“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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