Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the base
Boil the rice in water until soft.
Add cold milk, butter, egg yolks, and grated lemon rind. Mix well.
Bake and top
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then stir in sugar and lemon juice.
Pour the mixture over the baked pudding and brown in the oven.
Serve cold.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 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
- Softened by boiling, it forms the body of the pudding.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the custard and help it set as it bakes.
- Egg whites
- Beaten until stiff, they form a light topping that browns in the oven.
- Milk
- Provides liquid and creaminess for the pudding base.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the meringue-style topping and helps it brown.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the sweet topping.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks to trap air and form a stable topping. Under-beaten whites will deflate and make the top weep or sink into the pudding.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, egg, butter, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, egg, butter, 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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