Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Quick Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the rice
Boil the rice until soft.
Break in the eggs and add the cream or milk and nutmeg.
Finish and serve
Bring to a boil again.
Serve with bits of butter on top.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,779 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,920 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together24,377 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Softens into the starchy body that gives the pudding its base.
- Eggs
- Set with heat to thicken the mixture and bind it together.
- Cream or milk
- Adds moisture and richness, making the pudding creamy.
- Nutmeg
- Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness as it melts over the top.
The step that matters
Bring to a boil again. Egg proteins set when heated, so boiling the mixture hard after the eggs go in can curdle or scramble them. Keep the heat controlled so the pudding thickens smoothly.
“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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