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Dessert

Rice Custaed

A sweet custard made with rice, milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and topped with beaten egg whites.

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 Custaed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the rice with hot water.

  2. Add the scalded rice to 1 quart of milk.

  3. Boil in a frying kettle until the rice is soft.

  4. Beat the egg yolks with 4 tablespoons of sugar and add to the mixture just before removing from heat.

  5. Stir thoroughly without letting it boil again.

  6. Add salt and flavor with vanilla while boiling.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites with powdered sugar until stiff.

  2. Pour the custard into a serving dish.

  3. Spread the beaten egg whites on top.

  4. Brown slightly in the oven.

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. Milk + ricetop 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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and gives it a creamy body.
Rice
Softens as it cooks and thickens the milk, giving the custard its body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they heat and add richness.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms a light topping which browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by coagulating when heated, but they can curdle or scramble if the mixture boils after they go in. Stirring well and keeping the custard below boiling keeps it smooth.

“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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