Skip to main content
Dessert

Poor Man^s Cheese Pudding

A baked cheese and rice pudding made with brown rice, salt, grated cheese, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Poor Man^s Cheese Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Add the uncooked rice and salt to the milk.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake until the rice is nearly tender, stirring occasionally.

  2. During the last stirring, add the cheese.

  3. Bake until browned.

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. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Rice + cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brown rice
Provides the bulk and starchy body of the pudding as it softens in the milk.
Milk
Cooks the rice slowly and forms the creamy, moist base of the pudding.
Grated cheese
Melts into the pudding and browns on top, adding richness and savory flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the cheese at the last stirring. Cheese added too early can become oily or stringy as it overheats, so adding it late lets it melt smoothly and brown on top.

“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.

You might also like

Rice CakeRice Cake120 recipesCheese BallsCheese Balls97 recipesCheese CakeCheese Cake55 recipesCream CheeseCream Cheese46 recipes