Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Simple Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Combine milk, rice, sugar, and salt in a large pot.
Cook over very low heat, stirring frequently, until it begins to boil, about 1 hour.
Transfer the pot to a 300 °F (150 °C) oven and bake for 1 hour until a good brown crust forms.
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.
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Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,744 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Starch swells and softens as it cooks, thickening the milk into a pudding texture.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base and, as it cooks down, the creamy body and browned crust.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top surface brown during baking.
The step that matters
Cooking over very low heat while stirring frequently. Milk and sugar can scorch on the bottom of the pot. Frequent stirring and low heat keep the mixture from sticking and burning, which protects the flavor and texture.
“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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