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Dessert

Lemon Rice Pudding

A sweet pudding made from rice, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, and lemon zest and juice, topped with a browned meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Lemon Rice Pudding

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Lemon Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Boil the rice in salted water for 17 minutes.

  2. Drain the rice and add the milk and butter while hot.

Make the pudding

  1. Stir in the sugar, beaten egg yolks, grated lemon rind, and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice.

  2. Bake the mixture until set.

Top with meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gradually add the remaining lemon juice and 4 tablespoons of powdered sugar.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pudding.

  4. Lightly brown the meringue.

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.

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Starch absorbs the milk and softens, giving the pudding its body.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the pudding as they set; whites whip into a light meringue topping.
Milk
Adds liquid and milk proteins that set into a tender, custardy base.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the meringue brown lightly.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.
Lemon
Rind and juice add bright aroma and acidity that cut the sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake the mixture until set. Underbaked egg custard stays loose and runny, while overbaked eggs turn grainy and weep liquid. The pudding should be firm at the edges with a slight wobble in the center.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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