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A Good French Rice Pudding; or gAtEA I De Riz

A French rice pudding made with milk, rice, butter, sugar, lemon rind, eggs, and bread crumbs, baked until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Good French Rice Pudding; or gAtEA I De Riz

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the rice base

  1. In a pot, swell the rice in the milk (or milk and cream) until tender.

  2. Add butter, sugar, salt, and lemon rind; simmer until rice is fully swollen.

  3. Remove from heat, let cool slightly, then stir in the beaten egg yolks gradually.

Prepare the pan

  1. Coat a small copper stewpan with clarified butter, then drain excess butter.

  2. Sprinkle stale bread crumbs over the buttered pan, shaking off excess.

  3. Brush more clarified butter on the crumbs lining the pan.

Bake

  1. Gently fold the whisked egg whites into the rice mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into the prepared stewpan without disturbing the crumbs.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour until firm and browned.

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Swells in the milk to give the pudding its body and tender bulk.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help set the pudding as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whisked to snow, they lighten the mixture and help it rise in the oven.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs and the base of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to browning on the surface.
Clarified butter
Coats the pan and crumbs, adding fat for browning and easy release.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whisked whites trap air that gives lift; stirring vigorously deflates them, so fold gently to keep the pudding light.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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