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Dessert

Boiled Rice Pudding

A boiled pudding made with rice, milk, suet, eggs, currants, raisins, nutmeg, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Boiled Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the rice in boiled milk overnight.

Mix and boil

  1. In the morning, mix the soaked rice with shredded suet, nutmeg, salt, egg yolks, currants, raisins, and sugar.

  2. Stir well and tie the mixture tightly in a cloth.

  3. Boil for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with any sweet sauce.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

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

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

  4. Rice + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Whole rice
Forms the bulk of the pudding and absorbs the milk as it soaks and cooks.
Boiled milk
Softens the rice during the overnight soak and provides moisture for a creamy texture.
Beef suet
Adds fat that enriches the pudding and keeps it moist as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when boiled, using the yolks for richness.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The mixture must be tied tightly so it holds its shape and does not leak or swell loosely in the water. Loose wrapping lets water seep in and makes the pudding soggy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, beef, nutmeg, egg, raisin, sugar. 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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