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Savoury Rice Pudding

A baked dish of rice cooked in milk, seasoned with pepper and salt, topped with cheese and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Savoury Rice Pudding

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 ↓

Savoury Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the rice

  1. Boil the rice in the milk until tender.

  2. Season with pepper and salt.

Layer and bake

  1. Butter a pie dish and layer half of the rice in it.

  2. Sprinkle with 1 ounce of grated cheese.

  3. Add the remaining rice and sprinkle with another ounce of cheese.

  4. Dot small pieces of butter on top.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until nicely browned.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 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 in milk to form the bulk of the pudding and gives it a starchy body.
Milk
Cooks the rice and provides the moist, creamy base of the pudding.
Grated cheese
Melts into the layers and adds savory flavor and browning on top.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until nicely browned. The top should brown without drying out the pudding. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction on the surface and cheese, so the cook must watch color rather than rely only on time.

“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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