Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
A George Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the filling
Boil the rice in milk with the lemon peel until tender, then drain.
Mash the apples to a dry pulp and mix with the rice.
Add white wine, egg yolks, orange, citron, and sugar to the mixture.
Assemble and bake
Line a mold with pastry.
Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the mixture.
Fill the mold.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.
Make the sauce
Combine wine, sugar, egg yolks, and butter in a saucepan.
Simmer without boiling, stirring until thickened, then pour over the pudding.
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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Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Apple + white winetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together372 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,832 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the filling and help it rise and set in the oven.
- Egg yolks
- Bind the filling and, in the sauce, thicken it as they gently cook.
- Apples
- Mashed to a dry pulp, they provide the main fruit flavour and body of the pudding.
- Whole rice
- Cooked tender in milk, it forms the starchy base that gives the pudding its body.
- Milk
- Cooks with the rice to soften it and add richness and moisture to the filling.
The step that matters
Simmer the sauce without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if the sauce boils they can curdle and turn grainy. Stirring over gentle heat keeps it smooth and thickened.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, lemon, white wine, egg, orange, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Peachfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, lemon, white wine, egg, orange, sugar. 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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