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 ↓
Rice Souffle
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Cook the rice
Cook the rice in boiling water with salt until tender, then drain.
Combine the rice, milk, and cream in a double boiler.
Cook the mixture for 20 minutes.
Make the base
Beat the egg yolks with powdered sugar.
Mix the beaten yolks into the rice mixture.
Remove from heat and let cool.
Stir in orange peel and juice.
Bake and serve
Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites gently.
Pour into a well-buttered pudding dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes.
Serve immediately with a light, delicate sauce.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Rice + orangetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Whites trapped by folding give the soufflé its light, risen structure, while yolks enrich the custard.
- Rice
- Cooked rice thickens the milk and cream mixture and gives the soufflé its body.
- Milk and cream
- Provide moisture and richness, giving a soft, tender custard texture.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the base and helps stabilise the beaten yolks.
- Orange peel
- Adds aromatic oil and a citrus flavour to the custard base.
The step that matters
Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites gently. Deflating the whites by stirring vigorously releases the air bubbles that make the soufflé rise, so the mixture must be folded with a light hand.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, cream, egg, sugar, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, cream, egg, sugar, 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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