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Dessert

Rice Souffle

A baked rice soufflé made with rice, milk, sugar, butter, eggs, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Souffle

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.

Cook the rice

  1. Boil the rice in salted water for 10 minutes.

  2. Combine the rice, milk, butter, and sugar in a saucepan.

  3. Simmer slowly for about 30 minutes until the rice is very soft.

  4. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until smooth.

Finish the mixture

  1. Add the beaten egg yolks, lemon zest, and lemon juice.

  2. If too firm, add a little cream.

  3. Once cooled, fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a flat pudding dish or paper cases.

  2. Sprinkle granulated sugar on top.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.

  4. Serve immediately.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the base, while whipped whites trap air that lifts the soufflé.
Rice
Cooked rice breaks down into a thick, starchy body that gives the soufflé its structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture that cooks into a smooth, custard-like mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the texture soft and tender after baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender crumb.
Lemon
Zest adds aroma and juice adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich base.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Whipped whites hold the air that makes a soufflé rise. Overmixing or folding into a warm base deflates them, so the result bakes flat and dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, milk, butter, 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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