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 ↓
Chinese Rice
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the base
Boil rice in 1 pint of milk until soft.
Add butter and sugar to the rice.
Set and shape
Dissolve gelatin in ½ pint of milk.
Add the dissolved gelatin to the mixture.
When cold, stir in the cream.
Pour the mixture into a mold.
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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Softens in the milk and gives the pudding its body and bulk.
- Milk
- Cooks the rice and forms the liquid base of the pudding.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, soft mouthfeel.
- Gelatine
- Sets the pudding so it holds its shape once cooled.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a lighter, softer texture.
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness.
The step that matters
Dissolve the gelatine fully before adding it. Gelatine only sets properly when it is completely dissolved and evenly distributed. Undissolved granules can leave lumps or uneven, rubbery patches in the set pudding.
“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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