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 ↓
Boiled Custard
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Bring water to a boil in a kettle.
Add the milk and heat until it scalds.
Make the custard
Beat the eggs in a bowl with a little of the hot milk.
Gradually stir the egg mixture into the scalded milk.
Stir continuously until the mixture thickens.
Add flavoring to taste.
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
- Eggs
- Thicken the milk as they set gently, giving the custard its body.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the egg proteins thicken into custard.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the eggs and milk.
The step that matters
Stir the egg mixture into the scalded milk gradually and keep stirring. Eggs curdle if they get too hot too fast. Tempering with a little hot milk first and adding the mixture gradually, while stirring constantly, lets the proteins thicken smoothly instead of scrambling.
“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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