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Dessert

Rice Pudding

A creamy dessert made by boiling milk with spices, rice, and sugar, then adding butter, brandy, eggs, and syrup before baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine cream or milk, coriander seeds, lemon peel, cinnamon, and sugar in a pot.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture over the ground rice and boil for another 10 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Let the mixture cool, then add butter, brandy, nutmeg, beaten eggs, and syrup; mix well.

  2. Line a baking dish with puff pastry, pour the mixture in, and bake until set but not overcooked.

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. Coriander + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

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

  2. Cinnamon + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  5. Coriander + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,854 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs set the custard and give the pudding its structure as it bakes.
Ground rice
Cooked in the hot milk, it thickens the mixture and gives the pudding body.
Cream or whole milk
Provides the liquid base and richness that gives the pudding its soft, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the dairy and spices.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Eggs continue to firm as they cool, so overbaking makes the custard grainy and watery-textured. Pulling it out while the centre still wobbles slightly keeps it smooth and creamy.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, lemon, cinnamon, sugar, rice, butter, brandy. 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

Baked 88Apple 84with Meringue 40Boiled 38French 30Lemon 29 See all 1,220 →

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