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Dessert

Indian Rice Pudding

A baked pudding made from scalded milk, rice, Indian meal, ginger, molasses, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Indian Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Cook the Indian meal in scalded milk in a double boiler for 20-30 minutes.

  2. Add the uncooked rice, molasses, butter, and ginger.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.

  2. Stir well after cooking for 30 minutes.

  3. Finish cooking without stirring.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,196 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Ginger + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and structure.
Rice
Adds chewy texture and absorbs liquid, helping the pudding hold together as it bakes.
Milk
Forms the main liquid that the starches thicken and sets into a creamy pudding.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep color, and a rich caramel-like flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Ginger
Adds a warm, spicy aroma that balances the sweetness of the molasses.

The step that matters

Stir at 30 minutes, then leave it alone. Stirring partway through spreads the thickening starches and rice so the pudding cooks evenly. Leaving it still afterward lets the mixture set into a creamy, cohesive pudding instead of breaking up.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, rice, molasses):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, rice, molasses. 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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