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 ↓
Boiled Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rice
Wash the rice in cold water.
Place the rice in a cloth with salt and tie it loosely to allow for swelling.
Boil the rice in the cloth for 2 hours.
Alternatively, combine the rice with 1 quart of milk and water in a saucepan and boil for 45 minutes.
Finish and rest
In a bowl, add a little milk and stir it.
Add the cooked rice to the bowl to form it.
Cover the bowl to keep it hot for 15 to 20 minutes.
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.
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Its starch swells and softens during boiling, forming the body of the pudding.
- Milk and water
- Liquid that cooks the rice and gives the pudding its moisture and creamy texture.
The step that matters
Tie the cloth loosely around the rice. Rice swells considerably as it absorbs water. A loose tie leaves room for expansion, so the cloth does not burst or squeeze the grains while they cook.
“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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