Why it works: Egg and milk 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 ↓
Pudding Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the eggs well in a bowl.
Add the sugar and beat together until combined.
Pour the boiling milk over the egg and sugar mixture.
Stir rapidly to combine.
Add your preferred flavoring.
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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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 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).
Sugar and milk 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
- Eggs
- Thicken the sauce as the hot milk partly cooks them.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the sauce and adds body when beaten with the eggs.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base and supplies heat to thicken the eggs.
The step that matters
Pour the boiling milk over the egg and sugar mixture.. Hot milk poured in while stirring rapidly warms the eggs gradually. Rapid stirring spreads the heat evenly, which helps the eggs thicken smoothly rather than scramble into 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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