Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Sweet Rice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the rice well.
Make the pudding
In a saucepan, combine rice, milk, butter, cinnamon, and sugar.
Cook until thick, then stir in the egg yolks. Do not let it boil.
Serve hot or cold.
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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Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,137 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,147 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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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 + walnuttop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together430 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Provides the starch and bulk that thicken the milk into a pudding as it cooks.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the rice softens in and turns creamy.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the pudding and add richness when stirred in at the end.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a richer, smoother mouthfeel.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the milk and cinnamon.
The step that matters
Do not let it boil. Egg yolks begin to scramble above about 80°C, so boiling after they are added can curdle the pudding and leave it grainy. Cook gently until it thickens, then stir the yolks in off the heat or over low heat.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, cinnamon, sugar, egg):
- Almondfits better
- Walnutthe original
- Pecansfits about as well
- Chestnutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, cinnamon, 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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