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Dessert

Rice Souffle

A baked rice soufflé in a short pastry shell with milk, cinnamon, lemon peel, butter, brandy, nutmeg, and folded egg whites.

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 ↓

Rice Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Line a mold with short pastry and place a piece of bread in the bottom to prevent sticking.

  2. Rinse the rice in water, bring to a boil, then strain and let drain.

Make the rice filling

  1. Combine the rice, milk, cinnamon, lemon peel, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Stir and cook until the rice is soft, adding more milk if necessary.

  3. Remove the lemon peel and cinnamon.

  4. Stir in the butter, brandy, and grated nutmeg.

  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  6. Fold the beaten egg whites into the rice mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the pastry shell.

  2. Sprinkle with sugar.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set.

  4. Serve on a napkin.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten until stiff and folded in, they lighten the filling and help it rise and set as a soufflé.
Carolina rice
Cooked soft in milk, it forms the thick body of the filling.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to give the filling its soft, creamy moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smoother, softer texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites trap air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from deflating before the mixture bakes and sets.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, cinnamon, sugar, butter, brandy, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, cinnamon, sugar, butter, brandy, nutmeg. 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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