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Dessert

Apples and Rice

A baked apple and rice dish with jam, egg, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Apples and Rice

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Peel the apples, remove the cores, and fill them with jam.

  3. Place the apples in a pie dish and bake until soft.

Make the rice topping

  1. While the apples are baking, boil the rice and milk together until the rice is soft and the milk is absorbed.

  2. Beat in the egg and sugar, then pour the mixture over the apples.

  3. Brush the top with milk and bake until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold.

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. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Apples
Soften during baking and hold their shape around the jam filling.
Rice
Cooked in milk to form a thick, creamy layer that sets over the apples.
Egg
Binds the rice custard mixture so it sets rather than staying loose.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Milk
Provides moisture and richness for the rice, and a golden glaze on top.

The step that matters

Boiling the rice in milk until the milk is absorbed. Rice must cook fully and absorb the liquid so the mixture thickens into a creamy layer. Stopping early leaves a runny topping, while overcooking can make it stick and scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the apple

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

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

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