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Dessert

Rice a LA Vathek or Rice Pudding a LA Vathek

A sweet rice pudding made with almonds, milk, butter, and sugar, served with apricot jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Rice a LA Vathek or Rice Pudding a LA Vathek

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond milk

  1. Blanch the almonds.

  2. Pound the almonds to a smooth paste, adding a few drops of water to prevent oiling.

  3. Stir in the boiling milk gradually.

  4. Strain the almond mixture through a thin cloth and set aside to cool.

Cook the rice

  1. Wash and soak the rice for 10 minutes.

  2. Drain the rice.

  3. Pour the almond milk over the rice.

  4. Bring to a slow boil and simmer until tender, stirring often.

  5. Add the butter and sugar, and mix until fully incorporated.

Mold and bake

  1. Mold the rice mixture, pressing it evenly and leaving a hollow center with an inch-thick edge.

  2. Brush the top with butter before baking to prevent dryness.

Serve

  1. Serve with a large jar of apricot jam poured into the center.

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. Almond + apricottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fine jordan almonds
Ground into a paste, they give the milk its flavour and body.
Carolina rice
Its starch softens and thickens in the milk, giving the pudding structure.
Milk
Cooks the rice and makes the pudding creamy and moist.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding tender and moist.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the almond flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer the rice slowly, stirring often. Rice starch and milk sugars settle and scorch on the bottom of the pan at a boil. Frequent stirring and a gentle simmer keep the rice from sticking and burning while it softens and thickens.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, milk, rice, butter, 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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