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Dessert

Rice Custard

Rice custard is a sweet dish made with cooked rice, milk, eggs, and sugar, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Combine the rice and salt in the hot milk and soak until each grain is distinct.

  2. Separate the eggs.

  3. Beat the yolks with the sugar, then add the rice and milk mixture.

  4. Return the mixture to the pan and cook until the eggs thicken like custard.

Finish and serve

  1. While still hot, beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them in lightly.

  2. Set aside to cool.

  3. Alternatively, let the custard cool, then beat the egg whites stiff, add 1.5 tablespoons powdered sugar, and heap on top of the pudding.

  4. Brown in the oven and serve cold.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + ricetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard when cooked, and whites are beaten to add lightness.
Cold cooked rice
Provides the body of the pudding as the grains soak up the hot milk.
Hot milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice soaks in and the eggs set into custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the browned top develop flavour.

The step that matters

Return the mixture to the pan and cook until the eggs thicken like custard.. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. Overheating can curdle the eggs, leaving a grainy texture instead of 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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