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Dessert

Peaches with Rice

A dessert of peaches, rice, custard, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Peaches with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut the peaches in half and simmer them in syrup for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the peaches and let them cool.

Make the rice custard

  1. Boil the rice in milk with sugar and vanilla until done, then let it cool in a basin.

  2. Make a custard by mixing the milk with the egg yolks and letting it cool.

  3. Combine the custard with the cooled rice.

Set and serve

  1. Beat the cream with sugar and the dissolved isinglass until frothy, then mix it lightly with the rice and custard.

  2. Fill a mold with the mixture and set it on ice.

  3. Once moderately iced, turn it out onto a dish and serve.

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. Peach + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  5. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooked in milk until soft, it thickens the pudding and gives it a creamy body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help bind the pudding with their setting proteins.
Cream
Whipped to a froth, it lightens the texture and adds richness.
Isinglass (gelatin)
Sets the mixture as it chills, so the pudding holds its shape when turned out.
Peaches
Simmered in syrup, they add fruit flavour and sweetness to the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding the whipped cream into the rice and custard. The gelatin begins to set as the mixture cools, so the cream should be mixed in lightly while the base is still fluid. Heavy stirring knocks out the air that gives the froth its lightness, and a base that has cooled too far can cause lumps or uneven setting.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, rice, sugar, vanilla, egg, cream, gelatin):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rice, sugar, vanilla, egg, cream, gelatin. 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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