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Dessert

French Rice Pudding

A steamed pudding made with rice, milk, sugar, raisins, suet, candied peel, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

French Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice in water and stew it in the milk until the milk is absorbed and the rice is tender.

  2. Stone and chop the raisins, shred the candied peel, and grate the suet.

  3. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

Combine and steam

  1. Mix the sugar, raisins, suet, candied peel, and eggs into the rice and milk.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-greased basin.

  3. Cover with greased paper and steam gently for four 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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  2. Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softens into the milk as it stews, giving the pudding its body and bulk.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks, giving a firm, sliceable texture.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the pudding and keeps it moist and tender during steaming.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds a softer, moister crumb to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Steam gently for four hours. Gentle heat lets the eggs and starch set evenly without curdling or boiling the pudding into a rough, watery texture. Vigorous boiling can also let water into the basin and make the pudding soggy.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rice, milk, egg. 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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