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Dessert

Common Ground Rice Pudding

A sweet rice pudding made with milk, rice, sugar, eggs, and fresh gooseberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Common Ground Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. In a pot, combine the milk, rice, and sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture for 10 to 12 minutes.

Finish the pudding

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and then stir them into the rice mixture.

  2. Add the fresh gooseberries and mix well.

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. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Rice
Its starch swells and thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Provides the liquid the rice cooks in and forms the creamy base of the pudding.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the pudding and adding richness and a smooth texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the gooseberries.
Gooseberries
Add tartness and fruity brightness that contrasts with the sweet, creamy rice.

The step that matters

Stirring the beaten eggs into the rice mixture. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the rice mixture is too hot or the eggs are added too quickly, they can scramble or turn lumpy. Stir steadily so the eggs blend in evenly and the pudding stays smooth.

“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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