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Rice and Raisins

A boiled pudding of rice and raisins served with sugar and hot syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Rice and Raisins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly.

  2. Stone the raisins.

  3. Mix the rice and raisins well.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie the mixture loosely in a scalded and floured pudding bag.

  2. Drop the bag into boiling water and boil for 2 hours.

  3. Turn the pudding out onto a hot dish.

  4. Sprinkle with sugar and serve with hot syrup or hot pudding sauce.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together336 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the bulk of the pudding and gives it a soft, starchy body as it cooks.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture, and moisture as they plump during boiling.

The step that matters

Tying the pudding bag. The bag should be tied loosely because the rice swells as it cooks. A tight seal can restrict expansion and make the pudding dense or misshapen. Scalding and flouring the bag helps keep the pudding from sticking to it.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, sugar, syrup):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, syrup. 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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