Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Rice Flummery
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the pudding
Boil the ground rice slowly in the new milk.
Add lemon peel and chopped almonds.
Stir continuously while cooking until it thickens.
Set and serve
Pour into a mold and let it stand overnight.
Serve with cream and preserve.
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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Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,456 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 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
- Ground rice
- Its starch swells as it cooks, thickening the milk into a pudding.
- New milk
- Provides the liquid that the rice cooks in, giving the pudding its creamy body.
- Bitter almonds
- Add a distinctive nutty, bitter aroma and flavour to the pudding.
- Loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the milk and almonds.
The step that matters
Stir continuously while cooking until it thickens. Ground rice starch settles and can scorch on the bottom of the pan if not stirred. Constant stirring keeps the heat even and lets the starch swell smoothly into a uniform, thick pudding.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, almond, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, almond, 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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