Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
A German Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Boil the rice in milk with lemon peel until very tender, then drain.
Mash the apples to a pulp.
Mix the apples with the rice.
Add white wine, egg yolks, orange, citron, and sugar to the mixture.
Assemble and bake
Line a mold with pastry.
Beat the egg whites to a strong froth.
Mix the frothy egg whites with the other ingredients.
Fill the mold with the mixture.
Bake until golden brown.
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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Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Apple + white winetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together372 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,832 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg whites
- Beaten to a froth, they lighten the filling and help it rise and set as it bakes.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
- Whole rice
- Cooked until very tender, it forms the body of the pudding.
- Apples
- Mashed to a pulp, they add moisture and sweetness to the filling.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites to a strong froth. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to a stable foam. If under-whipped, the filling stays dense; if over-beaten, they turn dry and grainy and collapse when folded in, so the pudding rises less evenly.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, lemon, white wine, egg, orange, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Peachfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, lemon, white wine, egg, orange, sugar. 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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