Why it works: Rice and raisin work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 565 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the rice in water for 30 minutes.
Tie the soaked rice and raisins in a cloth, leaving room for swelling.
Cook and serve
Boil the cloth bundle for 2 hours.
Remove from the cloth and pour melted butter mixed with sugar over the pudding.
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.
-
Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together565 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
-
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Raisin + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,630 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Forms the bulk of the pudding and absorbs water as it cooks, softening into a tender body.
- Raisins
- Add sweetness and chewy pockets of moisture throughout the pudding.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving a glossy finish.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the mild flavour of the rice.
The step that matters
Leave room for swelling in the cloth. Rice absorbs water and expands as it cooks. If the cloth is packed tightly, the pudding can burst the tie or cook unevenly and become compacted.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, sugar):
- Coconutfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Peachfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, 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.
More rice pudding recipes
You might also like
Rice Cake120 recipes
Rice Cream43 recipes
Rice Jelly42 recipes
Rice Batter Cakes11 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.