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Cocoanut Rice

A sweet coconut rice dish made with coconut milk, shredded coconut, rice, sugar, vanilla, egg, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cocoanut Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the milk from 2 coconuts.

Make the rice

  1. Place the coconut milk in a saucepan with 1 pint of cold milk, the shredded white part of 1 coconut, 8 ounces of raw rice, 2 ounces of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence, and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

  2. Cook slowly for 40 minutes, stirring from the bottom to prevent scorching.

  3. Stir in 1 fresh egg until very hot.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Stir in 1 cup of whipped cream, then serve.

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. Coconut + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Coconut + ricetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla 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

Raw rice
Provides the starch that thickens the milk and gives the pudding its body as it cooks.
Fresh egg
Thickens the hot mixture through gentle setting, giving it a creamy, rich texture.
Coconut milk
Supplies fat and moisture, giving the rice a rich, creamy coconut flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the coconut and cream.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and lightness, cooling the hot rice and making it silkier.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg into the hot rice. The egg must be stirred in while the mixture is very hot so it thickens smoothly. Stirring constantly during the slow cook also keeps the rice from sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pan.

“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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