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Dessert

Rice and Peach Pudding

A baked pudding of soaked rice, milk, sugar, butter, eggs, and peaches, served with Maryland sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 and Peach Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rice

  1. Soak the rice in cold water with salt for 1 hour.

  2. Drain the rice and place it in a double boiler.

  3. Add enough milk to cover the rice and cook slowly until the milk is absorbed.

Make the pudding

  1. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, butter, and beaten eggs.

  2. In a buttered dish, layer the rice mixture and halved peaches until the dish is full.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes if using canned peaches, or 40 minutes if using fresh peaches.

  2. Serve with Maryland 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. 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. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  4. Rice + peachtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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 as it absorbs milk and softens into a creamy base.
Eggs
Bind the pudding and set during baking, giving it a firmer, custard-like structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning on the surface during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
Milk
Cooks into the rice, providing moisture and a creamy texture.
Peaches
Add fruity sweetness and moisture that softens and flavours the pudding as it bakes.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice in the milk. Cooking slowly lets the rice absorb the milk gradually and soften evenly. Heating too fast can scorch the milk or leave the rice unevenly cooked, and the eggs added afterward need a mixture that is not too hot, or they may scramble.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

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