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Dessert

Plain Rice Pudding

A pudding made with pearl barley, milk, butter, eggs, nutmeg, lemon peel, bitter almonds, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Plain Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the pearl barley in boiling water the night before.

Make the pudding

  1. In the morning, combine the soaked barley with 1 quart of milk and a small piece of butter in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer the mixture over low heat for 5 to 6 hours.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly before adding 4 well-beaten eggs.

  4. Stir in nutmeg, lemon peel, bitter almonds, and sugar to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 1.5 hours.

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 + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + barleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Nutmeg + barleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Forms the bulk of the pudding and thickens it as it simmers in the milk.
Milk
Cooks with the barley to create a creamy, soft base for the pudding.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding and give it a firm, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the simmered mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the flavors of the milk and eggs.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs off the heat. If the milk is too hot when the beaten eggs go in, the proteins can scramble and make the pudding grainy. Letting it cool slightly helps the eggs thicken it smoothly during baking.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, nutmeg, almond, sugar, barley):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, nutmeg, almond, sugar, barley. 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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