Why it works: Beef and tea work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 417 recipes. Both carry 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan, which smells thiamin, meat. The science ↓
Savoury Custard
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the custard
Beat the egg until frothy.
Mix the frothy egg with beef tea and salt.
Butter a small dish and strain the mixture into it.
Steam and serve
Place the dish in a saucepan of boiling water, cover with paper, and steam for 20 minutes.
Carefully turn it onto a hot dish and 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.
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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Beef + teatop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together417 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).
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Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,847 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Tea + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together703 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Egg + beeftop 31% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg
- Sets when gently heated, giving the custard its firm, sliceable structure.
- Beef tea
- Supplies the liquid base and savory flavor that the egg sets into custard.
- Butter
- Greasing the dish helps the set custard release cleanly when turned out.
The step that matters
Steaming gently in boiling water. Egg proteins set at moderate heat; if the water boils too hard or the custard cooks too long, it can become rough, watery, or spongy. Covering the dish with paper keeps steam and condensation from marking the surface.
“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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