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Dessert

A Good Boiled Rice Pudding

A boiled rice pudding made with rice, milk, sugar, bitter almonds, lemon rind, eggs, and optional butter or candied orange rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Good Boiled Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice base

  1. Put the rice into the milk while cold, heat it slowly, and let it only simmer until it is done.

  2. Sweeten with 3 to 4 ounces of sugar, broken small, and stir while still hot, adding the grated rind of half a large lemon, 4 or 5 bitter almonds pounded to a paste, and four large well-whisked eggs.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then pour it into a thickly-buttered basin or mould, which should be quite full.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie a buttered paper and a floured cloth over it, and boil the pudding exactly an hour.

  2. Let it stand for two or three minutes before it is turned out, and serve with sweet sauce, fruit syrup, or a compote of fresh fruit.

Optional additions

  1. Add an ounce and a half of candied orange rind or a couple of ounces of butter to enrich, if desired.

  2. Use milk flavored with cocoa‑nut or vanilla for an excellent result.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

146Calories
7 gProtein
6 gFat
17 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7

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

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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.

  1. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Rice (in the method)
Swells and thickens in the simmering milk, giving the pudding its body.
Milk (in the method)
Cooks the rice and forms the creamy custard base of the pudding.
Eggs
Set when cooked, binding the pudding and giving it a firm, tender structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds flavor.
Butter (in the method)
Enriches the pudding and adds richness to the mould.

The step that matters

Simmer the rice gently. Starting the rice in cold milk and heating it slowly lets the grains absorb liquid evenly. Fast boiling can scorch the milk on the bottom and leave the rice unevenly cooked.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pistachiofits about as well
  2. Milletfits about as well
  3. Almondthe original
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

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

More rice pudding recipes

Baked 88Apple 84with Meringue 40Boiled 38French 30Lemon 29 See all 1,220 →

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