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Dessert

Rice with Custard Cream

Rice cooked with custard cream and topped with jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,399 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Rice with Custard Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice

  1. Cook the rice until thick.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Return to heat for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Pour into tea cups dipped in cold water.

  5. Turn out when cold.

Serve

  1. Pour custard cream around the rice.

  2. Top with red-currant jelly or raspberry jam.

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 + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Rice + curranttop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together497 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Rice + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,350 recipes

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

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Cooked thick, it forms the bulk and firm body of the dessert once chilled and turned out.
Egg whites
Beaten and heated, they set into the rice, giving it a light, sliceable structure.
Custard cream made with egg yolks
Its rich, smooth texture contrasts with the firm rice and adds richness.
Red-currant jelly or raspberry jam
Adds fruity sweetness and acidity that balances the rich custard.

The step that matters

Return to heat for 2-3 minutes. Gentle reheating after the egg whites are folded in sets the egg proteins so the rice holds its shape when unmoulded. Overheating can make the whites grainy or weepy, so keep the heat low and the time short.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, egg, cream. 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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