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Dessert

Rice Souffle Made with Ground Rice

A sweet, airy rice soufflé made from ground rice, butter, eggs, sugar, and flavoring, baked until puffed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 430 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice Souffle Made with Ground Rice

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Mix 3 tablespoons of ground rice with enough water to make a smooth paste, adding more ground rice until you have 1 pint.

  2. Stir in a walnut-sized piece of butter and cook over low heat for about 15 minutes until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, then add sugar and any desired flavoring.

Finish and bake

  1. Incorporate the well-beaten yolks of 5 eggs one at a time.

  2. Just before baking, fold in the beaten whites of 6 eggs until frothy.

  3. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes and serve immediately.

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 + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the base into a starch-set custard that gives the souffle its body.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the base once baked.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they lift and puff the souffle as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer, richer texture and flavor.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be beaten to soft, stable foam and folded in gently just before baking. Overmixing deflates the air bubbles, and waiting too long lets them collapse, so the souffle rises less.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, sugar, egg. 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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