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Dessert

Ground Rice Pudding

A sweet pudding made from ground rice, milk, cinnamon, lemon peel, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, orange flower water, and optional currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ground 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.

Make the pudding base

  1. In a saucepan, combine 4 ounces of ground rice with 1½ pints of milk gradually.

  2. Add a small piece of cinnamon and lemon peel, then heat over medium heat, stirring until it boils.

  3. Beat the mixture to a smooth batter and let it simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Finish and bake

  1. Stir in 3 beaten eggs, powdered sugar, nutmeg, and orange flower water until well combined.

  2. Optionally, add currants before baking.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish with a pastry border and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the milk into a set, creamy pudding as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice thickens into a custard-like texture.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding structure and a tender, custardy body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pudding and dissolves easily into the warm batter.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture smooth before simmering. Ground rice can clump if it is not fully dispersed in the milk, leaving lumps in the finished pudding. Beating it to a smooth batter first gives an even texture once it thickens and sets.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, cinnamon, lemon, egg, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, cinnamon, lemon, egg, sugar, nutmeg. 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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