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Dessert

Apples and Rice

A sweet dish of steamed rice flavored with spices, served with boiled apples and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apples and Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Steam the rice in a double boiler with salt, milk, and water until soft, adding more liquid if necessary.

  2. Flavor the rice with nutmeg, cinnamon, or rose water, and stir in chopped almonds if desired.

  3. Once the rice is soft and has absorbed the liquid, shape it into a bowl.

Cook the apples

  1. Cook the cored and peeled sour apples in a syrup made of equal parts sugar and water until tender.

  2. Carefully remove the apples and place them around the rice, filling the center with them.

  3. Boil the syrup down and pour it around the apples.

Finish and serve

  1. Fill each apple with whipped cream and top with a piece of currant or raspberry jelly.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softens into a tender base that holds the shape of the bowl.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess as the rice absorbs the liquid while steaming.
Sour apples
Provide tart contrast and hold their shape when cooked gently in syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps the apples become tender and glossy.
Whipped cream
Adds a light, creamy filling that contrasts with the cooked fruit.
Almonds
Add nutty flavor and a slight crunch to the rice.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice until soft. Rice must steam long enough to absorb the liquid and soften fully. Too little liquid or heat leaves it firm, so it will not hold its shape when shaped into a bowl. Adding liquid as needed keeps the grains moist.

“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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