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Dessert

Ground Rice Pudding

A sweet rice pudding flavored with almonds, lemon peel, and nutmeg, baked or boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Ground Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard base

  1. Mix the ground rice with a few tablespoons of cold milk until smooth.

  2. Boil the new milk and combine it with the rice mixture, beating well.

  3. Once cold, add the yolks of 4 to 6 eggs and the whites of half that number.

  4. Pound the bitter and sweet almonds with sugar, then add grated lemon peel and nutmeg if desired.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a dish.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes, or boil in a basin for the same time.

  3. Turn out and 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.

  1. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

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

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 cooks, giving the pudding body and a soft set.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness to the mixture as it bakes.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavour and a fine texture when pounded into the mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the yolks and whites once the milk has cooled. If the milk is still hot when the eggs go in, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy pudding instead of a smooth, set custard.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, egg, almond, sugar, lemon, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Turmericfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

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