Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Minute Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the milk
Set the milk in a basin of hot water and bring it to a boil.
Add 1 pint of boiling water to the milk.
Make the thickening
Mix the flour with ½ cup of milk to make a smooth paste.
Beat the two eggs and mix them with the flour paste.
Cook and serve
Place the basin with the milk and water over heat and let it boil once.
Stir in the thickening and beat well until smooth.
Cook for 3 more minutes and serve with vinegar sauce.
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 + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Flour
- Thickens the hot liquid into a smooth, set pudding as its starch swells.
- Eggs
- Add richness and help the pudding set as they cook.
- Milk
- Forms the body of the pudding and gives it a creamy texture.
The step that matters
Stir in the thickening and beat well until smooth.. Flour mixed into hot liquid can clump before its starch disperses. Beating well while the mixture is hot separates the particles so the starch thickens evenly into a smooth pudding.
“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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