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Dessert

French Rice Pudding

A baked rice pudding with grated tart apples, eggs, sugar, wine, lemon, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

French 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

  1. Steam or carefully cook the rice until tender.

  2. In a bowl, mix the grated apples, egg yolks, sugar, nutmeg, wine, and lemon juice.

Assemble and top

  1. Layer the rice and apple mixture in a baking dish, starting and ending with rice.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Fold in the reserved lemon juice.

  4. Spread the whipped egg whites over the top of the pudding using a knife dipped in cold water.

  5. Sift sugar over the top.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden 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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooked rice gives the pudding its body and soft, absorbent base.
Grated apples
Grated apples add moisture, tartness and fruity flavour to the layers.
Egg yolks
Yolks enrich the apple mixture and help it set into a custard.
Egg whites
Whipped whites form a light foam that puffs and browns on top.
Sugar
Sugar sweetens the pudding and helps the top brown in the oven.
Lemon juice
Lemon juice adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the apples.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites until stiff. Whites under-whipped stay runny and sink into the pudding, while over-whipped whites turn grainy and dry and crack as they bake. Stiff, glossy peaks hold their shape and give a light, even topping.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, egg, sugar, nutmeg, wine, lemon. 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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