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Dessert

Rice Pudding

A baked rice pudding with raisins, currants, citron, and a citrus‑vanilla sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly, rubbing it between your hands, and change the water several times.

  2. Boil the rice in water for 10 minutes, then cool it briefly in cold water and drain.

Make the pudding

  1. In a saucepan, combine the rice, milk, sugar, and grated lemon peel. Simmer gently for 1 hour.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the eggs until well mixed, then add the raisins, currants, and citron.

  3. Butter a tin mold and sprinkle bread crumbs on the bottom and sides.

  4. Pour the rice mixture into the mold and bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1.5 hours.

  5. Turn the pudding out of the mold.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a saucepan, mix corn starch, egg yolks, milk, sugar, and orange rind or vanilla.

  2. Stir until it begins to boil, strain, and serve with the pudding.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 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
Forms the body of the pudding, absorbing milk as it simmers and baking into a soft, tender set.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs and gives the pudding its creamy texture.
Eggs
Bind the cooked rice mixture so it sets firm when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly on the surface.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Corn starch
Thickens the sauce so it coats a spoon instead of running thin.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce until it just begins to boil. Egg yolks can curdle if overheated, and corn starch needs to reach boiling to fully thicken; stirring constantly keeps the sauce smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, sugar, lemon, egg, raisin, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, sugar, lemon, egg, raisin, 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.

More rice pudding recipes

Baked 88Apple 84with Meringue 40Boiled 38French 30Lemon 29 See all 1,220 →

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