Why it works: Rice and milk 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 ↓
Frosted Rice
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.
Make the rice base
Boil the rice in milk until tender.
Season with salt to taste.
In a deep dish, heat the egg yolks with the rice mixture.
Top and bake
Beat the egg whites with sugar and lemon juice until stiff.
Spread the egg white mixture over the rice.
Brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.
Serve
Serve cold.
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.
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Rice
- Cooks into the tender body that the pudding is built on.
- Milk
- Cooks with the rice to form the creamy, moist base.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the rice mixture into a custard-like texture when gently heated.
- Egg whites
- Whip into a stiff foam that forms a light topping and browns in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the meringue and helps it brown in the oven.
- Lemon juice
- Acidity stabilises the whipped egg whites so they hold their shape.
The step that matters
Heating the egg yolks with the rice mixture. If the hot rice is added too quickly or the heat is too high, the yolks can scramble instead of thickening smoothly. Heating gently while stirring keeps the base creamy.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, egg, 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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