Why it works: Rice and milk 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 ↓
Caramel Rice
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Combine the loaf sugar and water in a small saucepan and boil until the mixture turns a golden toffee color.
Quickly pour the caramel into a perfectly dry soufflé mold or basin, coating it all over, and let it set.
Cook the rice and fill the mold
Combine the rice and milk in another saucepan and simmer gently for about one hour until the rice is tender.
Remove from heat and stir in the castor sugar and beaten eggs.
Pour the rice mixture into the mold over the caramel.
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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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + ricetop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,744 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk 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
- Loaf sugar
- Melts and browns into the golden caramel that coats the mold.
- Rice
- Softens as it simmers in milk, giving the dessert its body.
- Milk
- Cooks the rice and gives the dish a creamy texture.
- Eggs
- Thicken the mixture as they set, giving it structure.
- Castor sugar
- Adds sweetness and dissolves into the warm rice mixture.
The step that matters
Coating the mold with caramel. Sugar cooked past golden turns bitter, and caramel hardens quickly as it cools. Pour it promptly into a completely dry mold so it coats evenly and sets in a smooth layer.
“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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