Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the rice mixture
Bring the milk to a boil in a saucepan.
Add the loaf sugar and stir in the flaked rice.
Boil for a few minutes while stirring.
Remove from heat and let it cool slightly.
Bake and serve
Once nearly cold, add the beaten eggs and mix well.
Grease a bag thickly with butter and pour the mixture into it.
Cook in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes, reducing the heat to 300°F (150°C) after 5 minutes.
Serve by turning the pudding out onto a layer of stewed fruit or jam.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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 rice cooks in and sets into a creamy custard.
- Flaked rice
- Provides the body and starch that thicken the pudding as it cooks.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
- Loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps browning on the surface during baking.
The step that matters
Adding the eggs once the mixture is nearly cold. If the mixture is still hot, the eggs can scramble instead of blending smoothly. Letting it cool slightly first keeps the eggs smooth and lets them set evenly in the custard.
“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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