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Rice Pudding with Compote of Oranges

A creamy rice pudding served with a sweet orange compote.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Rice Pudding with Compote of Oranges

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Wash and pick over the rice.

  2. Add cold water and cook in a double boiler for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain the rice.

  4. Return it to the double boiler, add milk, and cook until the rice is tender.

  5. Rub through a sieve.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks, then add sugar and salt.

  2. Gradually pour in the hot rice mixture.

  3. Cook until the mixture thickens.

  4. Cool and freeze.

  5. Fold in the cream that has been beaten until stiff.

Mold and serve

  1. Mold and pack in salt and ice for 2 hours.

  2. Remove the pudding from the mold.

  3. Garnish with the oranges.

Prepare the orange compote

  1. Peel the oranges.

  2. Cut them into crosswise slices.

  3. Remove seeds.

  4. Cook in a thick syrup flavored with lemon juice.

  5. Cool.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

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

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

  4. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Rice + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the pudding as it cooks soft and thickens with milk.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it thicken and set when gently cooked.
Milk
Adds liquid and creaminess as the rice cooks and softens.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when folded in whipped.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds body to the custard.
Oranges
Provide fresh acidity and bright flavor to the compote.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the hot rice mixture. Adding hot liquid to egg yolks too quickly can scramble them. Pouring slowly while stirring lets the yolks warm gradually so the custard thickens smoothly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

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