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Dessert

French Rice Pudding

A baked rice pudding with grated apples, eggs, sugar, wine, and lemon, topped with whipped egg whites and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

French Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Steam or carefully cook the rice until tender.

Make the apple mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated apples, egg yolks, sugar, nutmeg, wine, and lemon juice.

  2. Bake the mixture in the oven until well combined.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the rice and apple mixture in a pyramid shape, starting and ending with rice.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff. Fold in the reserved lemon juice.

  3. Spread the whipped egg whites evenly over the pudding using a knife dipped in cold water.

  4. Sift white sugar over the top.

  5. Bake until the surface is a delicate brown.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the tender bulk and body of the pudding.
Egg yolks
Enrich and bind the apple mixture, giving it a custard-like set.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that lightens the topping and browns in the oven.
Tart apples
Add moisture and a tart, fruity flavour that balances the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the topping brown.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps stabilise the whipped whites.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites until stiff. Under-whipped whites collapse and weep, while over-whipped whites turn grainy and dry. Stiff, glossy peaks hold the topping up and let it brown evenly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, egg, sugar, nutmeg, wine, lemon):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, egg, sugar, nutmeg, wine, lemon. 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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