Name: Puerto Rican-style Sweet Rice Pudding
Ingredients: 4 Cups water; 1 Teaspoonful salt; 1 Teaspoonful cloves; 1 Tablespoonful Crushed fresh ginger; 1 14-Oz Can coconut cream Such as coco Lopez; 1 Cup Regular, Uncooked, short-grain rice; 1 Cup sugar; 1 Tablespoonful Cooking oil (optional); 1/2 Cup Raisins

Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Puerto Rican-style Sweet Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice and spiced water

Soak rice in water for about two hours before cooking, then drain.
Add salt, cloves, and ginger to three cups of water in a deep saucepan and bring to a boil.
Sieve through a colander to remove the remnants of the spices, then bring to a boil again.

Cook the pudding

Add coconut cream, rice, sugar, and oil.
Cook covered over medium-low heat for about twenty minutes.
Add raisins and blend in.
Continue to cook uncovered until the rice has absorbed all the water, about fifteen more minutes.

Set and serve

Pour into a square or rectangular dish about one inch high and allow to cool.
Sprinkle ground cinnamon or cinnamon sugar on the pudding and cut into two-inch squares for serving.
Refrigerate; it will keep for several days, well covered.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

728Calories

8 gProtein

42 gFat

85 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Coconut	1/2 cup shredded (40g)	283
Rice	1 cup cooked (158g) white	206
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Grape	1/2 cup (76g)	62
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Ginger	1 tsp grated fresh (2g)	2
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Water	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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.

Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Coconut + ricetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,063 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ginger + coconuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,168 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,070 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Short-grain rice: Its starch thickens as it cooks in the liquid, giving the pudding its body and chewy texture.
Coconut cream: Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a creamy mouthfeel and a coconut flavor.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and helps give it a soft, tender set as it cools.
Raisins: Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Finishing the absorption cook. Rice keeps absorbing liquid and thickening as it cooks uncovered, so stopping too early leaves the pudding loose and stopping too late can dry it out and make it stiff. Watching for the water to be fully absorbed sets the final texture.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, ginger, coconut, cream, rice, sugar):

Vanillafits better
Mangofits better
Limefits better
Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, ginger, coconut, cream, rice, 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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Puerto Rican-style Sweet Rice Pudding