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 ↓
Apples and Rice
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the rice
Boil the milk and lemon rind together for a few minutes to flavour the milk.
Remove the rind and add the rice with enough sugar to sweeten it.
Boil gently until the rice is soft, then let it cool.
Prepare the apples
Pare, quarter, and core the apples.
Boil the apples until tender in a syrup made with sugar and water.
Lift the apples out to drain.
Assemble and bake
Place a small bowl in the center of a dish and surround it with the rice until the bowl is reached.
Smooth the rice with the back of a spoon.
Insert the apples into the rice in rows, alternating the direction.
Bake in the oven to color the apples.
Serve
When ready to serve, remove the bowl, garnish the rice with preserved fruits, and pour custard in the center until level with the top of the rice.
Serve hot.
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 pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
-
Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
-
Rice + appletop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,311 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Swells and softens as it cooks in milk, forming the body of the dish.
- Milk
- Cooks with the rice to give it a creamy, tender texture and carries the lemon flavour.
- Apples
- Soften in syrup and then brown in the oven, adding fruit flavour and contrast to the rice.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the rice and the apple syrup.
- Boiled custard
- Adds richness and a smooth sauce poured into the centre of the dish.
The step that matters
Boil the rice gently until soft. Rice cooked too hard will not soften fully in milk, and rice boiled too fast can scorch or stick to the pan. Gentle heat lets the starch release slowly, giving a creamy, evenly tender result.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, sugar, apple):
- Vanillafits better
- Peachfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, sugar, apple. 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.
More apple rice recipes
You might also like
Lemon Rice Pudding19 recipes
Apple Pudding256 recipes
Lemon Cake228 recipes
Lemon Ice147 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.