Why it works: Milk and egg 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 ↓
Tea Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the tea cream
Boil 2 teaspoons of green tea in 1 quart of milk.
After several minutes, strain the mixture.
Add the well-beaten yolks of 3 eggs and ¼ pound of powdered sugar.
Boil the mixture to reduce it by half.
Strain the mixture again.
Serve
Serve when cold.
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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Milk + eggtop 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).
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Green tea + milktop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together51 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Green tea + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together159 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base and adds richness and body to the cream.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the mixture as they cook and add richness and a smooth texture.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavor of the tea.
- Green tea
- Gives the cream its tea flavor and aroma.
The step that matters
Boiling the mixture to reduce it by half. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the mixture boils too hard or too long after the yolks are added, they can scramble and turn grainy. Keeping the heat controlled gives a smooth, reduced cream.
“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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