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 ↓
A Good Rice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rice
Boil the rice in milk with salt for 20 minutes.
Drain the rice and mix it with cream, clarified butter, powdered sugar, lemon rind, brandy, and beaten eggs.
Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold.
Cook and serve
Boil for 1 hour.
Serve with cream and your choice of jam.
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.
-
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Forms the body of the pudding as it cooks and absorbs the milk.
- Eggs
- Set when heated, giving the pudding structure and a firm, custard-like texture.
- Milk
- Cooks with the rice to soften it and adds moisture and richness.
- Cream
- Adds fat and richness, giving a softer, smoother texture.
- Clarified butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the mixture.
The step that matters
Boil the rice in milk with salt for 20 minutes. Rice must be fully softened before it is mixed with the eggs, since the eggs set during cooking and will not soften unevenly cooked grains. Cooking the rice in milk first lets it absorb liquid and become tender throughout.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, cream, butter, sugar, brandy, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, cream, butter, sugar, brandy, egg. 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.
More rice pudding recipes
You might also like
Lemon Cake228 recipes
Lemon Ice147 recipes
Rice Cake120 recipes
Lemon Sherbet103 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.