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Dessert

Rice Blanc-mange

A sweet rice dessert made with ground rice, milk, sugar, butter, and flavorings, set in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rice Blanc-mange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice mixture

  1. Mix the ground rice with ½ cup of the milk to form a smooth batter.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the remaining milk, sugar, butter, and your chosen flavoring.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil, then quickly stir in the rice batter.

  4. Boil for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until it pulls away from the sides of the saucepan.

Mold and set

  1. Grease a mold with pure salad oil and pour in the rice mixture.

  2. Let it set completely, preferably overnight, for better firmness.

Serve

  1. Garnish with jam or serve with a fruit compote before serving.

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. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + laureltop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 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

Ground rice
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable set once cooked and cooled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice thickens into a creamy custard.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the blanc-mange and adds body to its flavor.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the set dessert.

The step that matters

Stirring while boiling. Ground rice settles and scorches on the bottom of the pan if not stirred constantly. Starch must be fully cooked and swollen so the mixture thickens evenly and sets firm.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, sugar, butter, milk, lemon, laurel):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, butter, milk, lemon, laurel. 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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