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Dessert

Rice-and-raisin Pie

A baked pie with a rice and raisin filling in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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-and-raisin Pie

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 rice

  1. Boil the rice in water until tender, about 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the rice and let it dry completely.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the eggs until light, then add sugar and beat again.

  2. Stir in the milk, vanilla, and boiled rice.

Bake and serve

  1. Line two pie dishes with crust and cover the bottom with raisins.

  2. Fill the dishes with the rice mixture and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes, until solid.

  3. Beat the egg whites to a meringue with a little powdered sugar, spread over the top, and brown lightly.

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Rice + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vanilla + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla 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
Forms the body of the filling, giving the pie its substance as it cooks.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the milk and rice into a firm, sliceable custard.
Milk
Provides liquid that cooks with the eggs to form a soft custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the egg mixture stay tender.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness spread across the pie bottom.

The step that matters

Let the rice dry completely. Excess water from wet rice dilutes the egg and milk custard, so it may not set firmly and can make the crust soggy.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

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