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 ↓
Empress Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the rice
Boil the rice in milk until soft, ensuring no spare liquid remains.
Layer the dish
Grease a deep dish and layer the rice to about 1 inch thick.
Spread a layer of jam over the rice, then add another layer of rice, repeating until the dish is full, with rice on top.
Finish and serve
While warm, beat in the butter and eggs, then let cool.
Optionally, flavor with spice or lemon peel, and serve with boiled custard if served cold.
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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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Forms the body of the pudding, absorbing milk as it cooks to become soft and creamy.
- Milk
- Cooks into the rice, providing the liquid that gives the pudding its creamy texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
- Eggs
- Bind the pudding and help it set into a firmer, custard-like texture as it cools.
- Jam
- Adds sweetness and fruity flavor between the rice layers.
The step that matters
Beat in the butter and eggs while the rice is warm. Warm rice lets the butter melt and the eggs blend smoothly through the pudding. If the mixture is too hot, the eggs can scramble, so beat them in gently and avoid overheating.
“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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