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Dessert

Meringrue Rice Pudding

A baked rice pudding topped with a sweet meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Meringrue Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Boil rice in water until dry.

  2. Add milk, butter, and beaten egg yolks mixed with lemon rind to the rice.

  3. Butter a dish and pour in the mixture.

  4. Bake lightly.

Top and finish

  1. Beat egg whites to stiff froth, then add sugar and lemon juice.

  2. When pudding is nearly done, spread the frosting on top.

  3. Bake in a slow oven (300°F/150°C) until the top is light brown.

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

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

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

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

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 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
Starch that softens and thickens as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Eggs
Egg yolks set the custard, and the whites whip into the meringue that browns on top.
Milk
Supplies liquid and milk solids that make the pudding creamy and help it brown.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the meringue stay glossy and stable.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Bake the meringue in a slow oven until only lightly browned. Meringue is egg white and sugar that sets and colours slowly in gentle heat. Too hot an oven can overbrown it, toughen it, or make it weep liquid.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, 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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