Why it works: Corn and tea work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 89 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Savory Custard
Ingredients
Directions
In a saucepan, combine the corn starch and strong beef tea.
Stir over medium heat for five minutes until thickened.
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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Corn + teatop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together89 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + beeftop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,028 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Beef + teatop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together417 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Corn starch
- Thickens the beef tea into a smooth, set custard as it heats.
- Strong beef tea
- Provides the liquid base and savory flavor of the custard.
The step that matters
Stirring over medium heat until thickened. Cornstarch must be stirred as it heats so granules swell evenly and gelatinize; stopping too early leaves the custard thin, while unstirred heat can scorch it or form lumps.
“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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