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Lemon Rice Pudding

A baked lemon-flavored rice pudding with a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Rice Pudding

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 ↓

Lemon Rice Pudding

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 pudding

  1. In a saucepan, stew the rice in the milk with sugar and butter until cooked.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then stir in the egg yolks and grated lemon zest.

Top and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, make a meringue by beating the egg whites with sugar and lemon juice.

  2. Heap the meringue over the rice mixture.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until lightly 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. 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

Rice
Cooks in the milk to a soft, creamy body that thickens the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks the rice and forms the creamy base.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the custard, while whites whip into the meringue topping.
Lemon
Zest adds aroma and juice adds acidity that brightens the sweet pudding and meringue.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the beaten egg white meringue.

The step that matters

Beating the meringue. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold stiff peaks, and sugar must be fully incorporated, so the topping stays airy and holds its shape in the oven rather than weeping or collapsing.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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