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Dessert

Apple and Rice Pudding

A sweet pudding made with apples, rice, butter, water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,311 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple and Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pan, combine the diced apples and butter.

  2. Add the washed rice and enough water to prevent burning.

  3. Cook until the rice is tender.

  4. Sweeten with sugar to taste.

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. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Release moisture and natural sweetness and aroma as they cook into the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries the apple flavour through the pudding.
Rice
Its starch softens and thickens the cooking liquid, giving the pudding its body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tartness of the apples.

The step that matters

Adding enough water before cooking the rice. Rice starch sticks to the pan and scorches when liquid runs low. Enough water keeps the rice hydrated so it cooks evenly and softens fully.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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