Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓
Rice Meringue
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Boil the rice until tender.
Make the pudding
Beat the eggs until very light, then mix in the hot rice.
Add the hot milk, raisins, and sugar to the rice and egg mixture.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.
Finish and serve
Make a custard by combining the milk, egg yolks, and egg whites, and season with vanilla and sugar to taste.
Once baked, pour the custard over the pudding and return to the oven to brown.
Let it cool completely before serving.
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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Vanilla + ricetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,352 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Vanilla + raisintop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together782 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
- Eggs
- Set the pudding and custard into a tender, sliceable structure as their proteins coagulate with heat.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that makes the custard creamy and keeps the pudding moist.
- Rice
- Forms the body of the pudding, absorbing liquid and giving it a soft, starchy texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and milk.
- Raisins
- Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
- Vanilla extract
- Contributes aroma and a warm flavour that rounds out the custard.
The step that matters
Pour the custard over the pudding and return to the oven to brown. Egg proteins set at moderate heat. If the oven is too hot or the pudding bakes too long, the eggs can curdle or weep, leaving a grainy, watery texture instead of a smooth set.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, vanilla, sugar, rice):
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits better
- Blueberryfits better
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, vanilla, sugar, rice. 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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