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Naples Rice Pudding

A rice pudding made with minced meat, onion, dripping, rice, milk, cornstarch, egg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Naples Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. In a pan, combine minced meat, chopped onion, dripping, and hot water. Simmer for 15 minutes without boiling.

Cook the rice

  1. In a separate pot, boil rice in enough water to cover it, adding salt. Shake occasionally but do not stir until soft and water is absorbed.

Combine and bake

  1. Remove rice from heat and stir in cold milk mixed with cornstarch, raw egg, and butter.

  2. Add the meat mixture and season to taste. Mix well and transfer to a buttered cake mold.

  3. Place the mold in a dripping pan filled with hot water and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour, covered.

  4. Turn out onto a hot dish and serve.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softens and absorbs water, forming the body of the pudding.
Raw egg
Sets when baked, binding the rice and giving the pudding its firm structure.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture so the pudding holds together when baked.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, softening the rice and enriching the custard.
Cooked meat
Adds savory flavor and richness to the pudding.

The step that matters

Do not stir the rice while it cooks. Stirring releases starch from the rice grains, making the texture gluey instead of tender and separate. Shaking gently keeps the grains intact while they absorb the water.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, milk, egg, butter. 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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