Name: Rice Pudding
Ingredients: ½ cup rice; 2 ounces butter; 4 ounces sugar; 1 quart whole milk; 1 tablespoon nutmeg; 1 tablespoon cinnamon; 4 or 5 eggs

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 ↓

Rice Pudding

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.

Prepare the rice

Boil the rice until tender, then drain and let it cool.

Mix and bake

Mix the cooled rice with butter, sugar, milk, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
Beat the eggs until light and add them to the mixture.
Pour the mixture into a deep dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

Serve

Let it cool before serving.

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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,779 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Forms the body of the pudding, giving it bulk and a tender, soft texture.
Eggs: Set during baking to bind the pudding into a custard-like structure.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and helps the top brown during baking.
Whole milk: Provides the liquid that cooks with the rice and eggs into a creamy custard.