Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Sage Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Wash the sage well and soak it in boiling milk until tender.
Beat the eggs and cream the butter.
Season with cinnamon or nutmeg and add the white wine.
If for a sick person or children, omit the butter.
Butter a dish and pour the mixture in.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about half an hour.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,083 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,784 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
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Milk + white winetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together929 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the cinnamon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, butter, white wine):
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Cinnamonthe original
- Tarragonfits about as well
- Parsleyfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, white wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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