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Custard for Clear Soup

A custard made with egg, stock, and spices, poached in a water bath and served as garnish for clear soups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Custard for Clear Soup

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.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the whole egg and egg yolk together.

  2. Add the white stock, then season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Strain the mixture into a well-buttered plain mold.

Poach and serve

  1. Place the mold in a saucepan with a little boiling water.

  2. Cover the mold with greased paper and poach in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 20 minutes.

  3. Once done, remove the mold and let it cool.

  4. Turn out the custard when cold and cut into dice, cubes, or other shapes for garnish.

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.

  1. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Whole egg
Sets into a firm, tender custard as the proteins coagulate with gentle heat.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and smoothness, helping the custard set softly and hold its shape.
White stock
Supplies the liquid base that gives the custard its savoury flavour and moisture.

The step that matters

Poach gently in a water bath. Egg proteins set at moderate heat; if the water boils or the oven runs too hot, the custard becomes rough, porous and weepy instead of smooth and tender.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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