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Dessert

Rice Custard

A custard made with rice, bitter almonds, rose water, milk, cream, and egg yolks, garnished with blanched almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rice Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the bitter almonds.

  2. Pound the blanched almonds into a paste with rose water or a little water to prevent oiling.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the ground rice smoothly with cold milk.

  2. Add the pint of milk, cream, almonds, and sugar to the mixture.

  3. Stir the mixture over low heat until lukewarm.

  4. Gradually add the egg yolks to the mixture.

  5. Continue stirring until the custard begins to thicken, but do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Serve the custard in cups.

  2. Garnish with blanched and chopped almonds.

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. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the custard body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and set the custard as they thicken it gently over heat.
Cream
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Bitter almonds
Provide the characteristic nutty, almond aroma and flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the almond flavor.

The step that matters

Do not let the custard boil. Egg yolks scramble and turn grainy if they get too hot, so the custard should only be stirred gently until it thickens.

“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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