Name: A Nice and Cheap Dessert
Ingredients: 1 teacup rice; 2 cups water; 1 cup milk; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon currant jelly or ½ teacup fruit juice (bright color); sweetened cream or cream and dry white sugar

Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

A Nice and Cheap Dessert

Ingredients

1 teacup rice
2 cups water
1 cup milk
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon currant jelly or ½ teacup fruit juice (bright color)
sweetened cream or cream and dry white sugar

Directions

Cook the rice

Cook the rice in water until thoroughly done.
Add milk and salt, cooking until it reaches a jelly-like consistency.
Stir in currant jelly or fruit juice and heat for a few minutes.

Mold and serve

Pour into a mold and let cool.
Serve with sweetened cream or cream and sugar.

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.

Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,399 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Rice + curranttop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together497 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Cooks down in water to give the pudding its body and thick, soft texture.
Milk: Adds richness and creaminess, and its dairy solids help the pudding set as it cools.
Currant jelly: Adds bright color and fruity sweetness; fruit juice can be used instead.

The step that matters

Cooking with milk until jelly-like. Rice starch thickens as it cooks and then sets as the pudding cools. If the mixture is not cooked long enough, it stays runny and will not hold its shape in the mold.

Swap the currant

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

Coconutfits better
Vanillafits better
Strawberryfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, cream. 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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A Nice and Cheap Dessert