Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Ground Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the mixture
In a bowl, mix 2 ounces of ground rice and 2 teaspoons of castor sugar with 1 tablespoon of cold milk until smooth.
Stir in 1 pint of boiling milk gradually.
Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish.
Cook and bake
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 15 minutes.
Sprinkle with castor sugar and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.
Alternatively, pour into a mold, let cool, and serve as a blanc-mange.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Ground rice
- Provides the starch that thickens the milk into a pudding texture.
- Milk
- Supplies the liquid that the rice starch swells in and sets as it cooks.
- Castor sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly on top.
The step that matters
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. Ground rice starch settles and can scorch on the base of the pan if left unstirred. Constant stirring keeps the mixture smooth and evenly thickened as the starch swells.
“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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