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Boiled Rice Pudding

A boiled pudding made from soaked rice, milk, suet, eggs, currants, raisins, nutmeg, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Nutmeg and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Boiled Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the rice in boiled milk overnight.

Mix and cook

  1. In the morning, mix the soaked rice with shredded suet, nutmeg, salt, egg yolks, currants, raisins, and sugar. Stir well and tie the mixture tightly in a cloth.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with any sweet sauce.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  3. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Rice + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole rice
Forms the bulk of the pudding and absorbs the milk as it soaks and cooks.
Milk
Softens the rice during soaking and gives the pudding its creamy moisture.
Beef suet
Adds fat that enriches the pudding and keeps it moist and rich as it cooks.
Eggs
Help bind the mixture and set it as it cooks.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the pudding.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth tightly. A tightly tied cloth keeps the mixture compact so it holds its shape while boiling. If it is loose, water can enter and the pudding can turn soggy and fall apart.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, beef, nutmeg, egg, raisin, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, beef, nutmeg, egg, raisin, sugar. 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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