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 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
Wash the rice and place it in cold water.
When the rice is half cooked, stir in the milk, eggs, butter, raisins, and lemon zest.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.
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).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together565 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,742 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Its starch thickens as it cooks and gives the pudding its body.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs and the base of the creamy texture.
- Eggs
- Set during baking, giving the pudding structure and a custard-like firmness.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer mouthfeel.
- Raisins
- Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Baking until a knife comes out clean. The eggs set as the custard heats, so the pudding firms up. Baking too long over-sets the eggs, which makes the texture dry and grainy.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, egg, butter, lemon):
- Coconutfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, egg, butter, 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.
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