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 ↓
Lemon 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 custard
Boil the rice in water until tender.
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with ⅓ cup sugar and stir into the sweet milk.
Add the grated lemon rind and cook until the mixture thickens.
Stir in the cooked rice and a little salt.
Top and bake
In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the lemon juice and 1 cup sugar to make frosting.
Spread the frosting over the rice mixture and bake at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.
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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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
- Cooked rice gives the pudding its body and bulk within the custard.
- Egg yolks
- Egg yolks thicken the milk into a custard as they cook and set.
- Sweet milk
- Milk forms the liquid base that the yolks thicken into a creamy custard.
- Egg whites
- Whipped whites form a light meringue-style frosting that browns in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sugar sweetens the custard and the frosting and helps the top brown.
- Lemon juice
- Lemon juice adds acidity that brightens the sweet custard and frosting.
The step that matters
Cooking the custard until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken milk only up to a point, and overheating them can curdle or scramble the mixture. Cook gently and stop once it coats a spoon, since the custard must be thick enough to hold the frosting above it.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, sugar, milk, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, milk, egg. 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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