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Dessert

Rice and Apple Pudding

A baked pudding made with rice, apples, and dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and dates work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 119 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Rice and Apple 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

  1. Boil the rice until soft.

  2. Half fill a pudding dish with the apples, filling their cavities with dates.

  3. Spread the rice over the fruit as a crust.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

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. Apple + datestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Rice + datestop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softened rice forms a starchy crust that sets and browns over the fruit in the oven.
Apples
Soften as they bake, adding moisture and a tender, fruity base beneath the crust.
Dates
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture inside the apple cavities.

The step that matters

Boil the rice until fully soft. Rice grains that stay firm will not break down into a cohesive layer. Fully cooked, starchy rice spreads easily and sets into a crust as it bakes.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, apple):

  1. Grapefits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, apple. 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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