Name: A Foiled Rice Pudding
Ingredients: ¼ pound rice; 5 egg yolks; ¼ pound butter; ¼ pound sugar; 1 small nutmeg, grated; ½ lemon, rind only; ½ pound currants, washed and cleaned

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Foiled Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

Boil the rice in water until soft, then drain in a fine sieve.

Mix the pudding

In a bowl, beat the rice with the egg yolks, butter, sugar, grated nutmeg, and lemon rind for 30 minutes.
Fold in the cleaned currants until well mixed.

Cook and serve

Butter a cloth, tie it up with the mixture, and boil for 1 hour.
Serve with white wine 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.

Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,779 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,366 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24,377 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

Rice: Forms the bulk of the pudding and gives it a soft, starchy body once cooked.
Egg yolks: Enrich the mixture and help bind it as it cooks, giving a rich, set texture.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the pudding taste balanced and rounded.
Currants: Add pockets of fruity sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth and boiling. The cloth must be buttered and tied firmly so the pudding holds its shape. If it is loose, water can enter and make the pudding soggy while it cooks.

Swap the currant

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

Coconutfits better
Vanillafits better
Orangefits better
Currantthe original

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

Lemon Rice Pudding19 recipes

Lemon Cake228 recipes

Lemon Ice147 recipes

Rice Cake120 recipes

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A Foiled Rice Pudding