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 Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the rice base
Boil the rice in water until very soft.
In a bowl, mix the milk, egg yolks, sugar, and lemon rind.
Combine the rice with the milk mixture and bake at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.
Top and serve
Beat the egg whites with 1 cup of sugar and add the lemon juice.
Spread the egg white mixture over the pudding and brown it.
Serve cold.
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).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 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).
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
- Rice
- Softened by boiling, it gives the pudding its body and bulk.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that sets into a creamy custard during baking.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the milk mixture and add richness as they set in the oven.
- Egg whites
- Beaten with sugar to form a meringue topping that browns over the pudding.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the beaten egg white meringue.
The step that matters
Browning the meringue topping. Beaten egg whites with sugar can weep or collapse if under-beaten or over-baked. Browning should be brief so the topping stays light and the custard underneath does not overcook.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, egg, 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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