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 ↓
A LA Neige or Floating Island
Ingredients
Directions
Make the egg white islands
Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.
In a saucepan, heat the milk and sugar until it rises.
Use a skimmer to add lumps of egg whites to the milk, turning them after half a minute.
Remove the lumps after another half minute and place them on a sieve.
Make the custard
In another saucepan, mix the egg yolks and sugar.
Add the strained milk to the yolk mixture and mix well.
Heat the mixture, stirring until it boils.
Remove from heat and add essence.
Assemble and serve
Pour the mixture into a dish.
Gently place the egg white lumps on top to float.
Serve 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.
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 whites
- Whipped into a stiff froth, they set lightly when poached and form the floating islands.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the milk into a custard as they heat and set.
- Milk
- Forms the base of the custard and poaching liquid for the egg whites.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the milk, the egg whites and the custard.
The step that matters
Heating the custard until it boils. Egg yolks thicken the custard as they heat, but if the mixture is stirred poorly or overheated it can curdle or scramble. Stirring constantly keeps the heat even so the custard thickens smoothly.
“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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