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Dessert

Jelly Rice

A dessert made from rice flour, milk, isinglass, lemon rind, almonds, sugar, and fruit syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Jelly Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Mix rice flour with cold milk until smooth.

  2. Add isinglass, lemon rind, pounded almonds, and sugar to the saucepan.

  3. Boil and stir briskly until thick.

Mould and serve

  1. Remove the lemon rind and pour the mixture into a damp mold.

  2. Once set, turn it onto a glass dish.

  3. Pour melted currant jelly or fruit syrup around it.

  4. Serve with a dish of cream.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable body as it cooks.
Isinglass
Gelatinous setting agent that firms the mixture as it cools.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch and setting agent thicken.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and balances the almond and lemon flavours.
Pounded almonds
Add a bitter almond aroma that flavours the jelly.

The step that matters

Boil and stir briskly until thick. Rice flour starch must be fully cooked and kept moving so it does not scorch or form lumps. Thorough cooking swells the starch so the mixture thickens evenly and sets firmly when cooled.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, flour, milk, lemon, almond, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, flour, milk, lemon, almond, sugar, cream. 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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