Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Cheap Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the rice thoroughly.
Mix the rice with the raisins.
Tie the mixture in a well-floured cloth, leaving room for it to swell.
Cook and serve
Boil the tied mixture for 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Serve the pudding with a very sweet sauce.
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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Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together565 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,611 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,078 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Rice + saucetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,396 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Absorbs water and swells as it cooks, giving the pudding its soft, set body.
- Raisins
- Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture as they plump in the cooking water.
The step that matters
Tie the cloth with room to swell. Rice absorbs water and expands substantially as it cooks. If the cloth is tied too tightly, the pudding is cramped and can burst or cook unevenly, so leave space for expansion.
“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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