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Dessert

Irish Moss Blanc-Mange

A custard-like dessert made from Irish moss, milk, salt, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Irish moss and vanilla share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 58 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Irish Moss Blanc-Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the moss

  1. Soak the Irish moss in cold water for 15 minutes.

  2. Drain and pick over.

Make the blanc-mange

  1. Add the moss to the milk.

  2. Cook in a double boiler for 30 minutes.

  3. Add salt.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Flavor with vanilla.

  6. Re-strain.

  7. Fill individual molds that have been dipped in cold water.

  8. Chill the molds.

Serve

  1. Turn the blanc-mange onto a glass dish.

  2. Surround with thin slices of banana.

  3. Place a slice on each mold.

  4. Serve with sugar and cream.

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. Irish moss + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Irish moss + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Irish moss
Seaweed gel that thickens the milk as it cooks and sets the blanc-mange when chilled.
Milk
Forms the body of the dessert and, with the moss, gives it its creamy, soft-set texture.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler for 30 minutes. Gentle indirect heat lets the moss release its gelling starch slowly without scorching the milk, which would cause burnt flavor and a grainy set.

“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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