Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Boiled Custard
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Beat the 7 egg yolks very light, omitting the whites of 2 eggs.
Mix the egg yolks gradually with the milk and ½ cup sugar.
Boil the mixture in a dish set into another dish of boiling water.
Add your chosen flavoring.
As soon as it reaches the boiling point, remove it to prevent curdling.
Top and serve
Whip the 2 egg whites and add 2 heaping tablespoons of sugar.
Once the custard is cold, heap the whipped egg whites on top.
If serving in cups, garnish with a strawberry or a bit of red jelly.
Set in a cold place until ready to serve.
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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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Yolks thicken the custard as they set with heat, giving it body.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the egg yolks thicken into a custard.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and stabilizes the whipped egg white topping.
The step that matters
Removing the custard from heat at the boiling point. Egg proteins set with heat and can curdle if overcooked, so the custard must be taken off heat as soon as it reaches the boiling point to stay smooth.
“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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