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 ↓
Floating Island
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Beat the egg yolks with the sugar.
Dissolve the cornstarch in a little milk and add it along with the salt to the yolk mixture.
Stir this mixture into boiling milk and cook until it thickens.
Once slightly cool, add flavoring and pour into a shallow glass dish.
Make and add the meringue
Beat the egg whites with 2 teaspoons of sugar and a pinch of salt.
Drop spoonfuls of the egg white mixture into slowly boiling water and cook for a few seconds.
Remove each cooked spoonful with a skimmer and place them carefully on the dish with the custard.
Alternatively, cook the egg whites in a pyramid shape and lift them onto the custard.
Serve
Serve ice cold.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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
- Yolks thicken the custard and whites whip into the light meringue floats.
- Milk
- Forms the body of the custard that the meringue floats on.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and stabilises the whipped egg whites.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the custard as it heats, giving it a smooth, set texture.
The step that matters
Cooking the meringue in water. The water must only simmer slowly. A hard boil can break up the delicate whites, while cooking them only a few seconds keeps them soft and light rather than rubbery.
“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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