Why it works: Milk and rice 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 Cups
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Sweeten the milk and flavor it with cinnamon or lemon rind.
Mix the ground rice smoothly with a little cold milk.
Make the custard
Add the well-beaten egg whites and mix in the boiling milk.
Stir the mixture over the heat until thick and smooth.
Shape and serve
Pour into tea cups soaked in cold water.
Once cold, turn the rice out of the cups.
Pour custard made with the egg yolks around the rice shapes.
Top each mold with a spoonful of bright-colored jam or jelly.
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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Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + eggtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,350 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the rice thickens and the egg whites set.
- Ground rice
- Thickens the custard as its starch swells in hot milk.
- Egg whites
- Set as they cook, giving the custard structure and body.
The step that matters
Stir the mixture over the heat until thick and smooth. Ground rice starch only thickens fully when heated, and constant stirring keeps it from clumping or scorching on the bottom of the pan. Stopping too early leaves the custard thin and lumpy.
“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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