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Dessert

A Butch Rice Pudding

A rice pudding made with rice, milk, cinnamon, eggs, butter, cream, sugar, nutmeg, lemon peel, and lined with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Butch Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rice

  1. Soak the rice in warm water for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain the rice.

  3. Combine the rice, milk, and cinnamon in a saucepan.

  4. Simmer until tender.

Make the custard

  1. Add the beaten eggs, melted butter, cream, sugar, nutmeg, and lemon peel to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Line a mold or dish with puff pastry.

  2. Pour the mixture into the lined mold.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until set.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the pudding, thickening as it simmers and absorbs the milk.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding its firm, custard-like structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs and the eggs set into a custard.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.
Cream
Adds richness and body, making the custard silkier and more tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Simmer until tender. Rice must be fully cooked before baking, because the oven only sets the eggs and will not soften undercooked grains. Stop the simmer when the rice is tender and the mixture is thick enough to hold its shape.

“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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