Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Savory Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Wash the rice thoroughly.
Clean the giblets and soak them in salted water for 1 hour.
Cut the giblets into several pieces and place them in a pot with the pork and rice, adding nearly 1 quart of cold water.
Cook
Cook slowly until the giblets are tender and the rice is soft, shaking the saucepan instead of stirring.
Once the rice is nearly dry, remove the giblets and chop them finely.
Heat the milk with the minced onion, then strain it and pour it over the rice.
When the mixture is scalding, stir in the giblets, butter, and seasoning.
Cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
Shape and serve
Wet a round or oval pan with cold water and press the rice firmly into it.
Turn the rice out onto a flat dish and set it in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 2 minutes before serving.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Turkey + porktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together830 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,433 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,214 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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 pudding and absorbs liquid as it cooks to a soft, set mass.
- Giblets of the turkey
- Provide the main meaty flavour and chewy texture through the rice.
- Fat salt pork
- Adds fat and savory flavour that coats the rice and carries seasoning.
- Milk
- Adds richness and moisture, softening the rice and giving a creamy texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness that gives a smooth finish to the mixture.
The step that matters
Shaking instead of stirring while the rice cooks. Stirring releases starch from the rice grains and makes the pudding gluey. Shaking the pan keeps the grains intact while they absorb liquid and soften.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, turkey, pork, milk, butter, pepper):
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Tomatofits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, turkey, pork, milk, butter, pepper. 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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