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Dessert

Rice Tart

A baked rice custard topped with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tea and rice work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 197 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rice Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Wash the rice and simmer it with the milk until tender.

  2. Beat the rice mixture well, then mix in the salt, sugar, nutmeg or cinnamon, and eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a pie dish with the pastry and spread the rice mixture on top.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  3. Before serving, sprinkle the surface with sifted sugar.

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. Tea + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together197 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Tea + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Tea + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Thickens the milk as it cooks and gives the tart its soft, creamy body.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to form the creamy base and adds moisture to the filling.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the filling so it holds a sliceable texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly at the surface.

The step that matters

Simmering the rice until tender. Rice must soften fully in the milk before baking, because undercooked grains stay firm and do not blend into a smooth, creamy filling.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, rice, milk, 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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