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Dessert

Rice Shape

A baked rice custard cake flavored with lemon rind, sweetened with sugar and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Rice Shape

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Cook the rice very slowly in the milk with the lemon rind for flavor until tender.

  2. Remove from heat, then add the sugar and beaten egg.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a plain mold well and pour the mixture into it.

  2. Cover with buttered paper and bake or steam for 40 minutes until firm.

  3. Turn out and pour a good custard sauce around and over.

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 + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Swells as it cooks, giving the cake its body and tender texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs and that sets into a custard.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm when baked or steamed.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard set with a smooth texture.
Lemon rind
Adds a bright citrus aroma that flavors the milk while the rice cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice very slowly in the milk. Milk contains sugars and proteins that scorch easily on the bottom of a pan over high heat. Gentle heat lets the rice absorb liquid and soften evenly without sticking or burning.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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