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Dessert

Swiss Rice

A creamy dessert of rice cooked in milk and cream, sweetened with vanilla and garnished with fruit juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and raspberry work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 950 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells fruity, sweet. The science ↓

Swiss Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Add salt to the boiling milk.

  2. Steam the rice in the milk over boiling water for 30 to 45 minutes until tender.

  3. Stir in the vanilla.

Shape and serve

  1. Once cool, fold in all but ½ cup of the whipped cream and shape into desired forms with a spoon.

  2. Mix enough fruit juice into the remaining whipped cream to achieve a pretty color and use it to garnish the top.

  3. Serve 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. Vanilla + raspberrytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  4. Rice + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + raspberrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softens as it steams in the milk, giving the pudding its body and tender texture.
Cream
Whipped cream folds into the cooled rice, adding richness and a light, airy texture.
Milk
Cooks with the rice, absorbing into the grains and creating a creamy base.

The step that matters

Steaming the rice until tender. Rice needs enough time and gentle moisture to fully soften; undercooked grains stay firm and grainy. Steaming over boiling water keeps the heat gentle so the milk does not scorch or boil over.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Raspberrythe original

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