Name: Rice Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup rice; 1 cup sugar; 1 cup raisins; 1 small piece of butter; a little salt; 2 quarts milk

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake

In a large bowl, stir together the rice, sugar, raisins, butter, salt, and milk.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake until set and lightly golden.

Serve

Serve warm or chilled with your favorite sauce.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together565 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,155 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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 and softens in the milk.
Milk: Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs, and sets into a creamy custard as it bakes.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and contributes to browning on the surface.
Raisins: Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.