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Dessert

Menu for a Party of Eight

A creamy rice pudding custard topped with meringue, fruit, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Menu for a Party of Eight

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Gently boil the rice until half done and drain it.

  2. Combine the rice with boiling milk and sugar, then add boiling cream.

  3. Stir well and simmer until the rice is fully cooked.

  4. Let it cool.

Make the custard

  1. Mince the mixed dessert fruits.

  2. Moisten the minced fruit with maraschino or noyau.

  3. Strain the milk and cream from the rice.

  4. Add enough milk to fill your chosen mold.

  5. Turn the mixture into a rich custard by adding the eggs.

Freeze and finish

  1. Set the freezing pail in ice.

  2. Pour in the custard.

  3. Work the mixture with a spatula until nearly frozen.

  4. Heat sugar with a little water until nearly boiling.

  5. Whip in the egg whites to make meringue.

  6. Add the meringue to the nearly frozen mixture.

  7. Continue to work with the spatula.

  8. Add whipped cream, minced fruit, and a splash of liqueur.

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. Apricot + gingertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together341 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Rice + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,196 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the thick, starchy body of the pudding as it cooks in milk.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to create a creamy, moist base.
Eggs
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set with heat.
Egg whites
Whipped into meringue, they add airy lightness to the frozen mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the meringue.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture.

The step that matters

Working the mixture with a spatula until nearly frozen. Stirring while the mixture freezes breaks up forming ice crystals, giving a smooth, creamy texture instead of a hard, icy one. Stopping too early or too late changes the final texture.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Peppermintfits about as well

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