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Dessert

Rice and Apple Pudding

A pudding made from rice, milk, eggs, apples, jelly, and sugar.

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 ↓

Rice and Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice

  1. Wash the rice and cook it in milk until done.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and sugar, then boil for five more minutes.

Prepare the apples

  1. Core the apples and cook them whole.

  2. Place the apples in a dish and fill the center with jelly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Surround the apples with the rice mixture.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and spread over the rice, then sprinkle with sugar.

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. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  3. Rice + appletop 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. Milk + eggtop 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

Rice
Forms the creamy, starchy base that surrounds the apples.
Milk
Cooks the rice into a soft, moist, custard-like mixture.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the rice mixture, and whites whip into a stiff topping.
Apples
Provide tender fruit and a tart contrast to the sweet rice.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the beaten egg whites hold their structure.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks, which traps air and gives a light meringue topping. Underbeaten whites stay runny and sink into the rice, while any trace of yolk or grease prevents them from whipping properly.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, 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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