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Dessert

Peaches and Rice

A steamed rice dessert with peaches, milk, and a little salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Peaches and Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Soak the rice in water for 1 hour.

  2. Add the milk and salt, then transfer to a double boiler.

  3. Cover and steam for 1 hour, stirring occasionally for the first 10-15 minutes.

Shape and serve

  1. Pour the cooked rice into a mold to cool.

  2. Turn the rice out into a glass dish.

  3. Stew the peaches in halves and arrange them around the rice.

  4. Pour the syrup or juice over the entire dish.

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

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

  2. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  3. Rice + peachtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Starch that softens and thickens as it steams, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess, and its proteins and sugars help the pudding set and brown lightly.
Peaches
Provide fruity sweetness and acidity that balance the mild, creamy rice.

The step that matters

Steaming with occasional stirring. Gentle steam in a double boiler cooks the rice slowly without scorching the milk. Stirring during the first 10-15 minutes spreads the starch and keeps the grains from sticking together or settling on the bottom.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Peachthe original
  4. Mangofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk. 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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