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Dessert

Apples and Rice

A sweet dish of steamed rice with apples, syrup, whipped cream, and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Apples and Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Steam the rice in a double boiler with salt, milk, and water until soft, adding more liquid if necessary.

  2. Stir in nutmeg, cinnamon, or rose water, and chopped almonds if desired.

  3. Once the rice is soft and has absorbed the liquid, shape it into a bowl.

Cook the apples

  1. Cook the cored and peeled sour apples in a syrup made of equal parts sugar and water until tender.

  2. Carefully remove the apples with a large spoon and place them around the rice, filling the center with them.

  3. Boil the syrup down and pour it around the apples.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill each apple with whipped cream and top with a piece of currant or raspberry jelly.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 base that holds its shape when shaped into a bowl.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess as the rice cooks and absorbs the liquid.
Sour apples
Provide tartness that balances the sweet syrup and cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps the apples turn tender and glossy.
Whipped cream
Adds a light, rich fat that softens the tart apples.
Almonds
Add crunch and a nutty flavour to the rice.

The step that matters

Shape the rice once it is fully soft. Rice must be soft and have absorbed its liquid before shaping, so it holds a clean bowl shape as it cools. Shaping too early leaves it wet and prone to collapsing.

“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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