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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Blend the arrow-root smoothly with 1 tablespoon of the milk or water.
Boil the remaining milk.
Make the pudding
When it boils, pour it over the arrow-root, stirring constantly.
Return the mixture to the saucepan and boil for 3 minutes.
Add the sugar and serve hot.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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
- Starch that thickens the milk into a smooth, soft pudding when heated.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a creamy texture.
The step that matters
Stirring while pouring the boiling milk over the arrow-root. Starch clumps if it meets hot liquid unevenly. Constant stirring disperses the starch granules so the pudding thickens smooth rather than lumpy.
“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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