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 ↓
Boiled Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Prepare a floured pudding cloth.
Wash the rice in cold water.
Place the rice and stoned raisins in the center of the cloth.
Tie the cloth securely, leaving space for the pudding to swell.
Cook and serve
Boil in a saucepan with plenty of cold water for 1 hour.
Turn the pudding out onto a dish and serve with treacle or sugar.
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.
-
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together565 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
-
Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,611 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Its starch absorbs water and swells, giving the pudding its soft, set body.
- Raisins
- They add sweetness and a chewy texture to the rice.
The step that matters
Tie the cloth securely, leaving space for the pudding to swell.. Rice absorbs water and expands as it cooks. If the cloth is tied too tightly, the pudding has no room to swell, so it can burst or turn out dense and uneven.
“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.
More rice pudding recipes
You might also like
Rice Cake120 recipes
Rice Cream43 recipes
Rice Jelly42 recipes
Rice Batter Cakes11 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.