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Dessert

French Rice Pudding

A baked rice pudding with grated apples, eggs, sugar, wine, and lemon, topped with whipped egg whites and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Prepare

  1. Steam or cook the rice until tender.

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

Layer and bake

  1. Bake the mixture in the oven until set.

  2. Layer the cooked rice and apple mixture in a pyramid shape, starting and ending with rice.

Top and finish

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff, then fold in lemon juice.

  2. Spread the whipped egg whites over the pudding using a knife dipped in cold water.

  3. Sift powdered sugar over the top.

  4. Bake until lightly browned.

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
Forms the bulk and firm base layer that holds the pudding together.
Grated apples
Adds moisture and tartness, and softens as the mixture bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the apple mixture and help it set into a custard when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped into a light foam that forms a airy topping which browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the topping take on color as it browns.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet apple flavor and stabilizes the whipped whites.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites only hold air when beaten to firm peaks, and under-whipped whites will sink or weep instead of forming a stable topping. Adding acid such as lemon juice helps the foam stay stable.

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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