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Dessert

Rice Cheese Pudding

A baked pudding made from ground rice, milk, butter, currants, eggs, brandy, sugar, nutmeg, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Rice Cheese Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Steep the ground rice in milk over the fire until soft.

  2. Transfer to an earthen pot and add the butter, stirring until melted.

  3. Cover and let it stand overnight.

Finish and bake

  1. The next day, add the currants, beaten eggs, ratafia or brandy, sugar, and nutmeg.

  2. Bake in patty pans lined with puff pastry.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Softens in hot milk and thickens the filling into a tender, pudding-like body.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding structure and a custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smoother, softer mouthfeel.
Currants
Add pockets of chewy sweetness and fruit flavour throughout the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the ground rice absorbs and that sets with the eggs.

The step that matters

Steeping the ground rice in milk over the fire until soft. Ground rice must be fully softened in the hot milk before the eggs are added; if it stays grainy, the filling will not thicken evenly and the texture of the baked pudding will be gritty.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, egg, brandy, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, egg, brandy, sugar, nutmeg. 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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