Name: Custard-cups
Ingredients: 3 egg yolks; 1 pint milk; sugar to taste; gooseberries

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 ↓

Custard-cups

Ingredients

3 egg yolks
1 pint milk
sugar to taste
gooseberries

Directions

Make the custard

Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.
In a saucepan, combine the milk and sugar, and heat over low until slightly thickened.
Allow the mixture to cool, then mix in the gooseberries.

Serve

Serve in cups.

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.

Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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 yolks: Thicken the custard as they set and add richness to the milk.
Milk: Forms the liquid base that thickens into a custard when gently heated.
Gooseberries: Add tart fruit flavour and fresh bite to the creamy custard.