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Dessert

Rice Blancmange

A chilled dessert made from milk, eggs, ground rice, brandy, nutmeg, and sugar, served with cream and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Blancmange

Ingredients

Directions

Make the blancmange

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk and beaten eggs.

  2. Stir in the ground rice, brandy, and grated nutmeg.

  3. Sweeten to taste and bring to a boil.

  4. Once near cold, pour the mixture into a mold.

Unmold and serve

  1. When completely cooled, unmold the blancmange onto a serving dish.

  2. Mix sugar, cream, and nutmeg, and pour around the blancmange.

  3. Garnish with red currant jelly.

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 + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Nutmeg + red curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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 thickens into a set custard.
Eggs
Add richness and help give the blancmange body as it cooks and cools.
Ground rice
Thickens the milk as it cooks, setting the blancmange once cooled.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the blancmange.

The step that matters

Bringing the mixture to a boil. Ground rice must be fully cooked to thicken properly and lose its raw starchy taste. Stirring constantly while heating helps prevent scorching and lumps, and the mixture thickens as the starch gelatinises during cooking.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

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