Name: A Good Ground Rice Pudding
Ingredients: 5 ounces ground rice or rice flour; 1½ cups milk; 4 ounces butter; 5 to 6 ounces sugar, roughly powdered; ¼ teaspoon salt; 8 egg yolks; 2 egg whites; grated rind of 1 lemon; ⅓ cup brandy; sugar for dusting

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 ↓

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 + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,366 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,127 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ground rice or rice flour: Thickens the milk into a smooth, set pudding texture as it cooks.
Egg yolks: Enrich the custard and help it set firm during baking.
Egg whites: Add airiness and help lift the pudding's structure as it bakes.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the pudding.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and helps brown the surface and pastry edges.
Milk: Forms the liquid base that the rice thickens into a custard.

The step that matters

Stirring the thickened mixture off the heat. Ground rice thickens as its starch swells, and stirring after removing it from heat keeps the mixture smooth and prevents it from hardening. Adding the eggs quickly keeps them from scrambling in the hot mixture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, sugar, egg, brandy):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, sugar, egg, brandy. 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.

A Good Ground Rice Pudding