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Rice Omelet

A baked rice and egg custard made with milk, cream, butter, vanilla, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Rice Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the rice base

  1. Boil the rice in 1½ pints of milk until tender.

  2. Boil the vanilla stick in ½ pint of cream, then stir the cream into the warm rice with the butter.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then add the beaten egg yolks, sugar, and salt.

Bake

  1. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Bake the omelet at 350°F (175°C) for about 50 minutes.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooks in milk to a soft, thick base that gives the omelette its body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lightness and help the omelette rise as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the rice base.
Milk
Cooks the rice and supplies moisture for a tender, creamy base.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding rather than stirring keeps the air whipped into the egg whites, which is what lifts the omelette as it bakes. Overmixing deflates the foam and leaves a denser result.

“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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