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 ↓
Old-fashioned Boiled Custard
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
In a kettle of boiling water, scald the milk.
Beat the yolks and whites of 3 eggs with 5 tablespoons of sugar.
Drizzle a little of the scalded milk onto the egg mixture and beat well.
Pour the egg mixture into the scalding milk and stir until it thickens.
Make the meringue
Beat the remaining egg whites to a stiff froth and sweeten slightly.
Place the bowl with the meringue over a pan of boiling water to steam.
Serve
Once the custard is cold, fill custard cups and top with meringue.
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
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the custard as they set with heat, while whites whip into the meringue topping.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens as the egg proteins set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the whipped egg white meringue.
The step that matters
Pour the egg mixture into the scalding milk and stir until it thickens. Egg proteins set with gentle heat, so the custard can curdle or turn grainy if the mixture is heated too fast or not stirred constantly. Adding the egg mixture slowly, after tempering, helps prevent this.
“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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