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Dessert

Rice Pie

A custard pie made with milk, rice, butter, eggs, sugar, and vanilla, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Rice Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Boil the milk in a pot.

  2. Mix the rice with a little cold milk and add it to the boiling milk.

  3. Stir in the butter until melted.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then add the beaten eggs.

  5. Sweeten to taste with sugar and flavor with vanilla.

Bake

  1. Pour into a pie crust and bake until set.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Rice + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pie a creamy, custard-like body.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the filling and giving it structure.
Milk
Forms the base of the filling and provides moisture and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth texture and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Adding beaten eggs to very hot milk can scramble them, leaving lumps instead of a smooth filling. Cooling first lets the eggs blend evenly and set into a silky custard when baked.

“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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