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Dessert

Apple Rice

A dessert of tart apples, sugar, nutmeg, and rice steamed together, served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,779 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Apple Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble

  1. Fill a pudding dish half full with tart apples.

  2. Sprinkle the apples thickly with sugar and nutmeg.

  3. Wash the rice thoroughly.

  4. Sprinkle the rice over the apples in the pudding dish.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam until the rice is tender.

  2. Serve with cream and additional sugar.

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 + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 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

Tart apples
Provide tart flavour and moist fruit that softens as it steams, balancing the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples caramelise slightly at their surface.
Rice
Forms the starchy body of the pudding, absorbing juices from the apples as it cooks.
Nutmeg
Adds warm aromatic flavour that complements the apples.
Cream
Adds richness and fat that softens the tartness of the apples.

The step that matters

Steam until the rice is tender. Rice must be fully cooked through, because firm grains stay chalky and hard. Steam gently and check the grains, since the starch needs sustained moist heat to soften.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, nutmeg, rice, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, rice, 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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