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 ↓
Lemon 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.
Prepare the pudding
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine boiled rice, milk, lemon rind, butter, and egg yolks.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 20 minutes.
Make and add the meringue
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gradually add sugar and lemon juice, mixing until well combined.
Spread the meringue over the pudding and lightly brown it in the oven.
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.
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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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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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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Boiled rice
- Forms the body of the pudding, giving it a soft, spoonable structure.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the custard and help bind the pudding as it sets in the oven.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a meringue that gives a light, airy topping that browns in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilize the meringue as it is beaten.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity and bright lemon flavor that balances the sweetness.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that sets with the egg yolks into a creamy base.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Egg whites need to be whipped to full stiff peaks so they trap air and hold their shape. Sugar added gradually helps keep the foam stable, so the meringue stays airy and browns evenly rather than weeping or collapsing.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, 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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