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Dessert

Rice Flummery

Rice Flummery is a sweet, thickened rice dish made by soaking, rinsing, and boiling rice with milk or wine, then served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Rice Flummery

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the rice

  1. Place rice in a broad pan and cover with water.

  2. Let it stand for 12 hours.

  3. Pour off the water until it runs clear.

  4. Add fresh water and mix.

  5. Let stand for another 12 hours.

  6. Repeat the process one more time for a total of 36 hours of maceration.

Cook and serve

  1. Strain the rice through a fine sieve.

  2. Boil, stirring vigorously until thick.

  3. Pour into a dish to cool.

  4. Serve cold with milk or a little wine and sugar.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the thick body of the dish as its starch swells and gelatinizes during cooking.
Milk or wine
Adds moisture and flavor when served with the cooled rice.

The step that matters

Stirring vigorously while boiling until thick. Rice starch can settle and scorch on the bottom of the pan. Constant stirring keeps it evenly heated and prevents lumps or burnt flavor while the starch thickens.

“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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