Why it works: Nutmeg and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓
Rice Pudding
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 rice
Rinse the rice.
Place the rinsed rice in a pot with cold water and simmer for 1 hour.
Make the pudding base
Add the new milk to the rice and bring to a boil.
Cook for 1 hour.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the salt, grated nutmeg, sugar, and scalded raisins.
Combine the egg mixture with the rice and milk, adding enough cream to fill the pan.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a 6-quart pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1½ hours, stirring twice to prevent the raisins from settling.
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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Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,377 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,779 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together565 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Provides the starchy body that thickens and gives the pudding its soft, tender texture.
- New milk
- Supplies the liquid that the rice absorbs and that sets into a creamy custard.
- Eggs
- Set when baked, binding the pudding and giving it a firm, custard-like structure.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly at the surface.
- Raisins
- Add chewy pockets of sweetness distributed through the pudding.
The step that matters
Stirring during baking. Raisins are dense and sink toward the bottom of the liquid pudding, so stirring while it bakes keeps them evenly distributed instead of settling in one layer.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, egg, nutmeg, sugar, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Raisinthe original
- Figfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, egg, nutmeg, sugar, cream. 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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