Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Rice Custards
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rice
Boil the rice with the raisins or currants, which must first be floured.
Butter some cups or a mold.
When the rice is soft, drain it and put it into the cups.
Set it aside to cool.
Make the custard
Beat the eggs well.
Boil the milk with the cinnamon and peach leaves or kernels.
Once it boils, remove it from heat and strain it through a sieve.
Return the strained milk to the heat.
Stir in the egg and sugar alternately.
Take it off frequently to prevent curdling.
Do not boil too long to avoid lumps and loss of flavor.
When done, set the custard aside to cool.
Bake and serve
Turn out the rice from the cups into a deep dish.
Pour some of the custard over the rice.
Serve the remainder in a sauceboat.
Optionally, make a stiff froth from egg whites beaten until stiff.
Add a few drops of lemon essence and a little powdered sugar to the froth.
Heap the froth on top of each rice lump.
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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Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,390 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,137 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Peach + cinnamontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together625 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Forms the firm body of each molded portion, holding its shape when turned out.
- Egg yolks or whole eggs
- Thicken the milk into a custard as they set gently with heat.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard that the eggs thicken.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the custard and the lemon-flavoured froth.
- Raisins or currants
- Add chewy sweetness and fruit flavour distributed through the rice.
The step that matters
Stirring in the eggs over gentle heat. Eggs thicken milk only up to a point; if the custard boils or is overheated, the proteins curdle and it turns grainy and lumpy. Removing it from the heat often keeps it smooth.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, raisin, egg, sugar, milk, cinnamon, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, raisin, egg, sugar, milk, cinnamon, butter. 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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