Name: A Pretty Dish of Apples and Rice
Ingredients: 6 oz. of rice; 1 quart of milk; the rind of 1 lemon; sugar to taste; ¼ teaspoon of salt; 8 apples; ½ lb. of sugar; 1 pint of water; 1 pint of boiled custard (see recipe No. 1423)

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 ↓

A Pretty Dish of Apples and Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

Boil the milk with the lemon rind for a few minutes, then remove the lemon rind.
Add the rice and enough sugar to sweeten.
Boil gently until the rice is soft.
Let the rice cool.

Prepare the apples

Peel, quarter, and core the apples.
Boil the apples in a syrup made from the sugar and water until tender.
Drain the apples on a sieve.

Assemble and bake

Place a small bowl in the center of a serving dish and surround it with the rice, smoothing the top.
Insert the apples into the rice in alternating rows, sloping to the right and left.
Bake in the oven until the apples are colored.
Remove the bowl.
Garnish the rice with preserved fruits.
Pour custard into the center until level with the rice.
Serve hot.

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.

Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,104 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,366 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,311 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Softens as it boils, forming the creamy body of the pudding.
Milk: Cooks with the rice to form the creamy, tender base of the pudding.
Apples: Hold their shape when simmered in syrup and add tart fruitiness and texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the rice and forms the syrup that cooks the apples.
Boiled custard: Adds a smooth, rich sauce poured into the center of the dish.

The step that matters

Boil the rice gently until soft. Rice simmered over high heat can scorch on the bottom or boil unevenly, and milk can scorch or boil over. Gentle heat lets the starch hydrate and swell slowly, giving a creamy, evenly cooked base.

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Peachfits better
Figfits better
Lemonthe original

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

Lemon Rice Pudding19 recipes

Apple Pudding256 recipes

Lemon Cake228 recipes

Lemon Ice147 recipes

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A Pretty Dish of Apples and Rice