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Dessert

Rice Souffle

A baked rice soufflé made with ground rice, milk, lemon peel, egg yolks, sugar, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Rice Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard base

  1. Boil the ground rice in the milk with the lemon peel, stirring constantly.

  2. Let it cool, then stir in the egg yolks and sugar, and cook over low heat for a few minutes.

  3. Allow to cool again, then fold in the whipped egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a deep round dish and bake at 300°F (150°C) until the souffle rises.

  2. Serve immediately to prevent flattening.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the milk as it boils, giving the base body and structure.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set gently when cooked over low heat.
Egg whites
Whipped air trapped in the mixture makes the soufflé rise in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice thickens and the eggs set into.

The step that matters

Serve immediately. Soufflés rise because trapped air expands in the oven, then lose that air and fall as they cool. Serving at once keeps the rise and the light texture.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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