Why it works: Arrowroot and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 159 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Arrowroot Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Mix the arrowroot with the teacup of new milk.
Boil nearly 1 quart of milk and stir in the arrowroot mixture.
When almost cold, add the beaten eggs, butter, sugar, and nutmeg.
Stir all together and pour into a buttered dish.
Bake
Bake for 15 minutes or more.
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.
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Arrowroot + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together159 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together24,377 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Arrowroot
- Thickens the milk into a smooth, set custard as it cooks.
- Eggs
- Add richness and help the pudding set as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the custard.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the milk and eggs.
The step that matters
Boil the milk before stirring in the arrowroot mixture. Arrowroot thickens when heated and needs the milk to be hot enough to gelatinise its starch. Stirring it into hot milk and keeping it moving prevents lumps and ensures a smooth, properly thickened base.
Swap the arrowroot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, butter, sugar, nutmeg):
- Sweet potatofits better
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Arrowrootthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, sugar, nutmeg. 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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