Name: Iced Rice-pudding {Francatelli}
Ingredients: ½ pound rice; 1 quart milk; ½ pint cream; 2 sticks vanilla; ¾ pound sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; 6 egg yolks

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Iced Rice-pudding {Francatelli}

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash and parboil the rice.

Make the custard

In a stew-pan, combine rice, milk, cream, vanilla, sugar, and salt.
Simmer gently until the rice is almost dissolved, stirring occasionally.
While hot, add the egg yolks and stir well for several minutes to mix.

Freeze and serve

Freeze the mixture like ice cream, stirring from the sides until set.
Transfer to a mold and immerse in ice and salt until ready to serve.

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.

Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Rice + vanillatop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,352 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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: Breaks down during simmering to give the pudding its body and creamy texture.
Milk: Forms the liquid base that the rice softens in, adding richness and body.
Cream: Adds fat, which makes the frozen pudding smoother and richer.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and lowers its freezing point so it stays soft enough to scoop.
Egg yolks: Thicken the custard and add richness when gently heated with the milk.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks while hot. If the yolks are stirred into a mixture that is too hot, they can scramble. Stirring them in well while the base is hot but not boiling lets them thicken it evenly into a smooth 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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Iced Rice-pudding {Francatelli}