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Dessert

Rice Pies

A sweet pie made with milk, eggs, sugar, ground rice, and lemon flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rice 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 Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk and cook the ground rice in it, stirring constantly.

  2. Once the rice is slightly cooked, remove from heat and gradually stir in the eggs.

  3. Add the lemon rind and lemon juice for flavor.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until set.

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. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the ground rice cooks into a thick, creamy filling.
Ground rice
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the filling its body and structure.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the filling and making it firm and custard-like.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the set texture of the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich filling.
Lemon rind
Contributes aromatic lemon oils that add fragrance to the filling.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the eggs. Eggs scramble if they meet very hot liquid all at once. Removing the pan from heat and adding the eggs slowly lets them blend in smoothly, so they set into an even custard when baked.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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