Why it works: Egg and milk 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 ↓
Custard Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the custard
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make a custard by whisking together the egg yolks and milk, then season with coarse sea salt.
Pour the custard into the pie crust and place it in the hot oven to bake.
Once the crust is heated, move the pie to a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) to bake slowly and prevent curdling.
Top and brown
When the custard is set, beat the egg whites until frothy, then add sugar and spread over the top.
Return the pie to the oven to brown the meringue slightly.
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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Egg + milktop 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard and add richness through their proteins and fat.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that sets into a soft, creamy custard.
- Egg whites
- Whip into a foam that forms a light, sweet meringue topping.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the meringue and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
The step that matters
Baking the custard at a lower temperature. Egg custard sets through gentle heat; high heat makes the egg proteins tighten too fast, causing the custard to curdle, weep, or turn grainy.
“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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