Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓
Corn-flour
Ingredients
Directions
Pour the milk into a clean saucepan.
Mix the corn-flour with a little cold milk to form a smooth paste.
When the milk is nearly boiling, pour the corn-flour mixture into it while stirring.
Continue stirring and let it boil for three to four minutes.
Turn it out into a basin and it is ready.
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 + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Corn-flour
- Thickens the milk into a smooth, set pudding as its starch swells when heated.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the corn-flour thickens into a creamy pudding.
The step that matters
Stirring the corn-flour paste into the hot milk. Corn-flour clumps if dropped in dry or added without stirring. Mixing it first into cold milk to a smooth paste lets the starch disperse evenly, and stirring while the milk heats keeps it lump-free as the starch swells.
“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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