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Dessert

Baked Rice and Apples

A baked dish of rice and stewed apples flavored with cinnamon and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Baked Rice and Apples

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Combine apples, cold water, brown sugar, cinnamon, and cloves tied in muslin in a pot.

  2. Stew gently for about 10 minutes.

  3. Transfer the stewed apples to a flat dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread the boiled rice lightly over the apples.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C).

  3. If using cold rice or cold apples, heat the dish thoroughly.

  4. Beat the egg white to a froth and spread it over the surface of the dish.

  5. Return the dish to the oven immediately and remove as soon as done. Serve at once.

  6. For a richer dish, use the egg yolk instead of the white.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Cinnamon + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Apples
Provide the main fruit body and sweet, tender flavour once stewed.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper caramel note to the stewed apples.
Boiled rice
Forms the starchy layer that bakes over the apples.
Egg
Forms a light set topping over the rice when beaten and baked.

The step that matters

Returning the dish to the oven. The egg white topping sets and turns light only if the dish goes back in immediately and is removed as soon as it is done. Overbaking dries the topping and can toughen the egg, while a cold dish slows setting.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, clove, rice, egg. 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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