Name: Baked Rice Pudding
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons (2 oz) rice; 1 pint milk or water (or half milk and half water); 1 teaspoon finely chopped suet; 1 tablespoon (1 oz) brown sugar

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 ↓

Baked Rice Pudding

Ingredients

2 tablespoons (2 oz) rice
1 pint milk or water (or half milk and half water)
1 teaspoon finely chopped suet
1 tablespoon (1 oz) brown sugar

Directions

Prepare and cook

Wash the rice twice.
Combine the rice with milk or water in a pot.
Add the chopped suet and brown sugar.
Cook over low heat until the rice is tender.

Bake

Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.

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.

Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,744 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar 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

Rice: Its starch swells and thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the pudding body.
Milk: Provides the liquid and creamy richness that the rice cooks in.
Suet: Adds fat that makes the pudding richer and more tender.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a molasses flavour that deepens the pudding.

The step that matters

Cook the rice over low heat. Milk and sugar scorch on the base of a pot at high heat, and rice can stick and burn. Low heat lets the rice swell and soften evenly before baking.

“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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Baked Rice Pudding