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Dessert

Gooseberry and Rice Pudding

A pudding made by boiling rice and gooseberries in a cloth, served with sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,611 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gooseberry and Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly.

  2. Dip a cloth in hot water and dust it with flour.

  3. Place the rice in the cloth and add the gooseberries on top.

  4. Tie the cloth securely, leaving room for the rice to swell.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the cloth for 1½ hours.

  2. Serve with sweet sauce.

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. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Rice + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,396 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Carolina rice
Forms the body of the pudding as it swells and softens while boiling.
Green gooseberries
Add tartness and moisture that cook into the rice, balancing its sweetness.
Flour
Dusted on the cloth so the pudding releases cleanly and forms a light skin.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth securely, leaving room for the rice to swell. Rice absorbs water and expands as it cooks. If the cloth is tied too tightly, the pudding can burst or cook unevenly, and if it is loose, water can seep in and make it soggy.

“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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