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Dessert

Flan De Vermicelle Aux Citrons

A lemon-flavored vermicelli custard made with sugar, milk, butter, eggs, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Flan De Vermicelle Aux Citrons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Rub the lemon rind on the sugar.

  2. Add the sugar to the boiling milk and gradually stir in the vermicelli.

  3. Boil for a few minutes, then add the butter and place over low heat to swell the vermicelli.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooked, add salt, egg yolks, and whipped cream to soften the mixture.

  2. Fold in the whipped egg whites gently before serving.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Vermicelli
Swells in the hot milk and butter, giving the dish its body and soft texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the mixture, adding richness and a smooth, set texture.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lightness and airiness to the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Milk
Provides liquid that the vermicelli absorbs and swells in, forming the base.
Sugar
Sweetens the dish and carries the lemon flavour from the rind.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped egg whites gently. Whipped egg whites hold air bubbles that give lightness. Stirring vigorously collapses them, so the dessert turns dense instead of airy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, egg, cream. 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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