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Dessert

Meringue Rice Pudding

A baked rice pudding topped with a sweet meringue layer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Meringue Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pudding base

  1. Boil the rice in water until dry.

  2. Add milk, butter, egg yolks, and lemon rind to the rice, and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

  4. Bake lightly at 300°F (150°C).

Top and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gradually add sugar and lemon juice to the beaten egg whites.

  3. When the pudding is nearly done, spread the meringue on top.

  4. Bake until the meringue is light brown.

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. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooked in water until dry, it forms the starchy body of the pudding.
Egg yolks
Enrich the pudding and help it set into a custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they form the light meringue topping.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the rice as the pudding bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilise the whipped whites.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar to the egg whites. Sugar should be added gradually to beaten whites so they form stiff, glossy peaks. Adding it too fast or before the whites are firm can leave the meringue weeping or limp.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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