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Dessert

Poor Man's Rice Pudding

Rice pudding made with rice, milk, raisins, sugar, baked, served warm or chilled with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Poor Man's Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly and place it in a baking dish with the milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 1/2 hours.

  2. Add the raisins and sugar, then bake for an additional 1/2 hour.

  3. Serve warm or chilled with cream.

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

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Provides the starch and bulk that gives the pudding its body as it cooks.
Milk
Cooks slowly with the rice, providing the liquid that softens the grains and makes the creamy base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown slightly at the surface during baking.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the raisins and sugar partway through baking. The rice must already be partly cooked and softened before the sugar goes in, since sugar slows starch softening. Adding it too early can leave the grains firm and the pudding less tender.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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

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