Why it works: Rice and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 933 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Cream Rice
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
Wash the rice.
In a pot, combine rice, sugar, nutmeg, salt, and milk.
Bake and thicken
Bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C), stirring often.
When the rice is soft, remove any brown crust from the top.
Quickly stir in the corn-starch dissolved in cold water.
Return to the oven briefly to thicken to custard consistency.
Serve with jelly if desired.
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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Rice + corntop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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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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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Nutmeg + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together563 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
- Its starch and softening grains give the pudding its body as it cooks.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that slowly thickens and gives the pudding its creamy richness.
- White sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly at the surface.
- Corn-starch
- Thickens the custard quickly once stirred in, giving a smooth, set texture.
The step that matters
Stirring in the corn-starch. Corn-starch must be dissolved in cold water first and stirred in quickly. Added as dry powder or left still, it clumps, and the starch only thickens properly once the mixture is hot enough to gelatinise it.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, sugar, milk, corn):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Gingerfits about as well
- Turmericfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, milk, corn. 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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