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 Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the rice custard
Stew the rice in 3 cups of milk until soft.
Beat the egg yolks with 4 tablespoons of sugar.
Add 2 cups of milk to the rice mixture and bring to a boil.
Stir in the beaten egg yolks and mix well.
Pour the mixture into a custard dish.
Top and brown
Beat the egg whites and add 4 tablespoons of sugar to make a frosting.
Flavor the frosting and brown it delicately on top of the custard.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,744 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 into the base as it stews, giving the pudding its body.
- Milk
- Cooks with the rice to form the creamy, moist base of the pudding.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard as they set with heat, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and, when beaten with egg whites, forms a stable frosting.
- Egg whites
- Whip into a foam that forms the frosting, which browns on top of the custard.
The step that matters
Stir in the beaten egg yolks and mix well. If the hot rice mixture is added too quickly or left too hot, the yolks can scramble instead of thickening smoothly. Mixing well and combining them evenly helps the custard set creamy.
“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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