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 Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rice
Wash the rice in 3 or 4 waters until the last one is clear.
Steam the rice in half of the milk.
Make the custard
In a bowl, mix the remaining milk, egg yolks, sugar, butter, and salt.
Butter a baking pan and pour the mixture into it.
Bake until set.
Top and finish
Whip the egg whites with 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar to make a meringue.
Spread the meringue on top of the pudding and return it to the oven until browned.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together565 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Forms the body of the pudding as its starch thickens during steaming and baking.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that cooks the rice and sets into a soft custard.
- Eggs
- Egg yolks set the custard, while whipped whites form the meringue topping.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the meringue whites whip into a stable foam.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that softens the texture of the pudding.
- Raisins
- Adds chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Baking the custard until set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, so the custard firms into a sliceable pudding. Underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it grainy or cause weeping.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, rice, sugar, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, rice, sugar, butter. 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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