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 ↓
Apples and Rice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rice
Boil the milk and lemon rind together for a few minutes to flavor the milk.
Remove the peel and add the rice with enough sugar to sweeten it.
Boil gently until the rice is soft, then let it cool.
Prepare the apples
Pare, quarter, and core the apples.
Boil the apples until tender in a syrup made with sugar and water.
Lift the apples out to drain.
Assemble and bake
Place a medium-sized jar in the center of a dish and surround it with rice until the jar is reached.
Smooth the rice with the back of a spoon.
Insert the apples into the rice in rows, alternating directions.
Bake in the oven to color the apples.
Serve
When ready to serve, remove the jar, garnish the rice with preserved fruits, and pour enough custard into the center to be level with the top of the rice.
Serve hot.
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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Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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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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Rice + appletop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,311 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Softens into a tender body that forms the bulk of the dish.
- Milk
- Cooks with the rice to make a creamy, moist base.
- Apples
- Hold their shape when simmered and add fruity flavor and moisture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the rice and the syrup used to cook the apples.
- Boiled custard
- Adds a smooth, rich sauce poured into the center of the mold.
The step that matters
Boil the rice gently until soft. Rice cooked at a hard boil can break apart and stick to the pan, while gentle heat lets the grains absorb the milk evenly and soften into a creamy texture.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, sugar, apple):
- Vanillafits better
- Peachfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, sugar, apple. 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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