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Dessert

Russian Rice Pudding

A sweet rice pudding flavored with rum, nutmeg or ginger, lemon, and topped with fresh fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Russian Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil cold water and lump sugar for a few minutes, skimming well.

  2. Stir in essence of nutmeg or ginger and lemon juice.

  3. Boil for a few more minutes.

Cook the rice

  1. Add the boiled rice.

  2. Cover the pan.

  3. Let it sit just below boiling point for 15 minutes.

  4. Stir in the rum.

  5. Cover again.

  6. Let it sit for 10 minutes.

Cool and serve

  1. Turn out into a deep glass dish to cool.

  2. Once cool, serve with fresh fruit arranged on top.

  3. Pour some syrup around.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + rumtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled rice
Provides the bulk and starchy body that makes up the pudding.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps it thicken slightly as it boils.
Rum
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour that is stirred in near the end.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet syrup.

The step that matters

Let it sit just below boiling point for 15 minutes. Holding the rice just below a boil lets it absorb the syrup gently and evenly. A rolling boil can break the grains apart and make the texture mushy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, rice, rum. 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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