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 ↓
Nouille-cake with Sabayon
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the noodle base
Prepare a nouille paste with the egg yolks and flour.
Divide the paste, roll it out, and cut it into very thin fillets.
Make the custard
Plunge the fillets into boiling milk and add the sugar and butter.
After 3 minutes, remove the liquid from heat and let it simmer gently, adding the lemon or orange sugar.
Once the mixture has a nice consistency, remove it from heat and stir in the egg yolks.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture onto a buttered baking sheet, smoothing it to about ½ inch thickness.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set, about 10 minutes.
Remove from the oven and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Egg yolks
- Bind the mixture and set into a firm, custard-like texture when baked.
- Flour
- Forms the paste and gives the fillets structure so they hold their shape in the milk.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that cooks the fillets and forms the creamy base.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a tender mouthfeel to the mixture.
- Lemon or orange sugar
- Sweetens the mixture and adds citrus aroma.
The step that matters
Stirring in the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks thicken when heated but scramble if they get too hot. Removing the mixture from heat before stirring them in lets them blend smoothly and set gently during baking.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, milk, sugar, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, milk, sugar, 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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