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Dessert

Apple and Rice

A baked dish of rice cooked in milk with butter, sugar, cinnamon, and stewed apple.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple and Rice

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the rice

  1. Boil the rice in the milk until very tender.

  2. Add a small piece of butter, sugar, cinnamon, and salt to the rice.

Stew the apple

  1. Peel, core, and slice the apple.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the apple with a small piece of butter, sugar, and a drop of water, and stew until tender.

  3. Place the stewed apple in a small tart dish.

Bake

  1. Mix the egg with the rice and pour it over the apple.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 10 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 + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Carolina rice
Cooked in milk until very tender, it forms the soft, creamy body of the filling.
Egg
Sets the rice mixture as it bakes, giving the filling structure and holding it together.
Milk
Cooks the rice to tenderness and adds moisture and richness to the custard-like filling.
Apple
Stewed until tender, it adds fruit flavour and moisture beneath the rice layer.

The step that matters

Mix the egg with the rice and pour it over the apple. Eggs set when heated, so the rice mixture must be well combined and poured before it cools too much. Adding the egg to very hot rice can scramble it, while a cooled, evenly mixed filling sets smoothly in the oven.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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