Name: Riz Au Lait, or Rice Milk
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon good rice; 1 pint milk; 1 ounce butter (optional); 2 teaspoons sugar (to taste); ¼ teaspoon salt (to taste); few drops orange-flower water (optional); 1 egg yolk (optional)

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 ↓

Riz Au Lait, or Rice Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash the rice and drain it well.
Put the rice into a saucepan with the milk.
Place the pan on the fire and bring the milk to a boil.

Cook and finish

Once boiling, reduce heat and let it simmer until the rice is tender.
Sweeten with sugar, add butter, and salt, then stir well.
If desired, add a few drops of orange-flower water and the egg yolk.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Rice + orangetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,067 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,696 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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

Good rice: Starch that softens and thickens the milk as it simmers into a creamy pudding.
Milk: Liquid that cooks the rice and forms the creamy body of the pudding.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the milk and rice.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Egg yolk: Enriches and thickens the pudding slightly when stirred in.

The step that matters

Simmer until the rice is tender. Milk scorches easily on direct heat and can stick to the pan. Keeping the heat low and stirring helps the rice absorb liquid evenly and the pudding thicken without burning.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, sugar, egg):

Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Figfits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, 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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Riz Au Lait, or Rice Milk