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Dessert

Apples and Rice, Ornamented

A pie case filled with firm rice and topped with peeled apples, apricot jam, cherries, and angelica leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Apples and Rice, Ornamented

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and core the apples smoothly.

  2. Boil the apples gently in light syrup for about 10 minutes until done.

  3. Prepare rice as for a cake, keeping it firm.

  4. Bake a circular or oval pie case about 3 inches high.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fill the baked case with prepared rice and arrange the apples in a pyramid on top.

  2. Mask the dish with diluted apricot jam, placing a preserved cherry in each apple.

  3. Insert pieces of angelica between the apples.

  4. Serve hot, dishing up shortly before serving.

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. Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Apricot + angelicatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Rice + angelicatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together54 recipes

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

  4. Apple + angelicatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Rice + apricottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together353 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Golden pippins apples
Hold their shape when boiled and form the pyramid topping of the pie.
Rice
Forms the firm, bulky filling that supports the apples inside the pie case.
Apricot jam
Glazes the dish, adding sweetness and a glossy finish over the apples.

The step that matters

Boil the apples gently in light syrup. Boiling vigorously can break the apples apart and make them mushy. A gentle simmer cooks them through while keeping their shape for the pyramid.

Swap the angelica

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, syrup, rice, apricot):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Angelicathe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, syrup, rice, 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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