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Breakfast

Milk Beai.

A German milk porridge made by thickening milk with butter and flour, then sweetening it with loaf sugar and a pinch of salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Milk Beai.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. Melt the butter in a small pot over medium heat.

  2. Once melted and hot, gradually add flour until absorbed.

  3. Stir the mixture on the heat for 6 minutes.

Make the porridge

  1. Slowly fill the pot with cold milk.

  2. Bring to a boil, stirring continuously for 30 minutes.

  3. Add the loaf sugar and a pinch of salt.

  4. Serve warm.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Absorbs the melted butter to form a roux that thickens the milk into a porridge.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the roux thickens as it heats and cooks.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to the finished porridge.

The step that matters

Adding the cold milk to the roux. Pouring the milk in slowly and stirring constantly keeps the starch dispersed, so the flour thickens the milk evenly without lumps forming.

“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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