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 ↓
Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the pudding
Put the rice and 3 cups of milk into a double boiler and steam until soft.
Add 1 pint of milk, sweet cream or butter, beaten egg yolks, and sugar.
Place back on the heat and stir gently until boiling.
Finish and serve
Transfer to a pudding dish and top with meringue made from the egg whites.
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 pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Softens and swells as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and bulk.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that cooks with the rice into a creamy custard.
- Sweet cream or butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard as their proteins set with gentle heat.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps balance the richness of the eggs and dairy.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam, they form a light meringue topping that can brown.
The step that matters
Stir gently until boiling after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins thicken the custard when heated gently. Too much heat or too little stirring can scramble the yolks into lumps, so the mixture must be stirred constantly over the heat.
“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.
More rice pudding recipes
You might also like
Rice Cake120 recipes
Rice Cream43 recipes
Rice Jelly42 recipes
Rice Batter Cakes11 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.