Why it works: Milk and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Arrow-root Blamange
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
In a saucepan, heat 3½ cups of sweet milk, reserving ½ cup.
Sweeten the milk with white sugar.
Mix 3 tablespoons of arrow-root with the reserved milk until smooth.
When the milk boils, pour in the arrow-root mixture, stirring quickly to prevent lumps.
Let it boil for 2-3 minutes until thickened.
Mold and set
Wet a mold with cold milk and pour the mixture into it.
Allow it to cool, then turn it out as directed.
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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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 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
- Arrow-root
- Thickens the milk into a smooth, set pudding as it boils.
- Sweet milk
- Forms the liquid base that the arrow-root thickens into a custard-like body.
The step that matters
Stirring the arrow-root into the boiling milk. Arrow-root starch clumps if it hits hot liquid unmixed. Mixing it smooth in cold milk first and stirring quickly as it goes in keeps the starch dispersed so the pudding sets evenly without lumps.
“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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