Name: Apples and Rice with Meringue
Ingredients: three cups of milk; one-half cups of sugar; a cup of rice in a quart of cold water; a quart of cold water; a cup of sugar; a cup of butter; two eggs; eight apples; salt

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apples and Rice with Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

Put three-fourths of a cup of rice in a quart of cold water and stir while heating to the boiling point.
Let boil for five minutes.
Drain and rinse with cold water.
Add three cups of milk and a scant teaspoon of salt to the rice.
Cover and cook until the rice is tender.

Make and bake the rice mould

Beat the yolks of two eggs.
Add the grated rind of an orange or lemon.
Add one-fourth of a cup of sugar.
Add one-fourth of a cup of butter.
Mix thoroughly and stir into the rice.
Turn the rice into a concave border mould that has been dredged with sugar.
Set the mould in a pan on several thicknesses of paper.
Surround the pan with boiling water.
Cook in the oven for fifteen or twenty minutes.

Cook the apples

Core eight apples.
Pare the apples.
Rub the apples with an orange or lemon.
Cook the apples in a syrup made of one and one-half cups of sugar and the same measure of water, keeping the apples whole.
When tender, fill the apples with jelly or jam.
Pipe meringue over the filled apples.
Dredge the whole apples with sugar.
Cook the apples in the oven for eight minutes.

Serve

Invert the rice onto a serving dish.
Put apples in the cavity.
Pour the syrup around the base of the mould.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

679Calories

19 gProtein

26 gFat

95 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Rice	1 cup cooked (158g) white	206
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Apple	1 medium (182g)	95
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
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.

By Mackay, L. Gertrude. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + ricetop 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 + appletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 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

Eggs: Yolks enrich and help bind the rice custard as they set with heat.
Rice: Its starch swells and thickens the milk, giving the dessert its body.
Milk: Cooks with the rice into a soft, creamy base for the mould.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
Apples: Hold their shape while softening in syrup, providing the fruit centre.
Sugar: Sweetens the custard and syrup and dusts the mould for a golden surface.

The step that matters

Cook the apples in syrup only until tender. Overcooked apples lose their shape and turn mushy, so they fail to hold the filling. Gentle heat in the syrup keeps them whole.

Swap the apple

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

Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Figfits better
Applethe original

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

Apple Pudding256 recipes

Rice Cake120 recipes

Apple Cake80 recipes

Apple Meringue75 recipes

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Apples and Rice with Meringue