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Savoury Custard

A steamed custard made from eggs, clear soup, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Savoury Custard

Why it works: Egg and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Savoury Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs and clear soup together in a bowl.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper and salt.

  3. Cover the bowl with buttered paper.

Steam and set

  1. Steam the mixture carefully until set.

Cool and serve

  1. Let it cool before turning it out onto a plate.

  2. Cut into slices and shape as desired.

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.

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.

  1. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
Their proteins coagulate when heated, setting the mixture into a firm custard.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, giving a smoother, softer, more tender set.
Clear soup
Supplies the liquid and savory flavor that the egg mixture sets around.

The step that matters

Steam the mixture carefully until set. Egg proteins coagulate at moderate heat. Too much heat or too long a steam makes the custard curdle, weep liquid and turn rubbery.

“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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