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Dessert

Rice and Fig Dessert

A dessert of steamed rice with stewed figs, served hot with optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice and Fig Dessert

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Steam the rice in milk and water until tender and dry.

  2. Stew the chopped figs in water with sugar until they form a homogeneous mass.

Serve

  1. Arrange the rice on a hot dish.

  2. Place the stewed figs in the center.

  3. Serve hot with cream or without dressing.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Rice + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Fig + sugartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Absorbs the milk and water as it steams, becoming tender and forming the dessert's base.
Milk
Cooks into the rice, adding richness and softness to the grains.
Figs
Break down into a thick, sweet mass that gives the dessert its fruity flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the figs and helps them soften into a uniform mass as they stew.

The step that matters

Stew the figs until homogeneous. Stewing too briefly leaves chunks of fig, while overcooking can scorch the sugar and dull the fruit's flavour. Cooking until the mass is smooth gives an even texture against the rice.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Figthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, sugar, cream. 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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