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 Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Soak the rice for 30 minutes.
Bake and serve
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours, slowly at first, until the rice softens and thickens the milk.
Let it brown slightly.
Serve with milk and sugar or with strawberry jam.
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 + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,744 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Its starch softens and swells as it bakes, thickening the milk into a creamy pudding.
- Milk
- Serves as the cooking liquid that the rice absorbs and thickens, forming the creamy base.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top take on a light brown colour during baking.
The step that matters
Bake low and slow. Gentle, slow heat lets the rice starch soften and absorb the milk evenly. High heat would scorch the milk on the bottom of the dish before the rice is tender.
“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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