Name: A Good Boiled Rice Pudding
Ingredients: 4½ ounces whole rice; 1½ pints new milk; 3 to 4 ounces sugar; vanilla (optional); coconut (optional); lemon zest (optional); 2 eggs (optional)

Why it works: Vanilla and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

A Good Boiled Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the rice in the milk until soft, about 1 hour.
Sweeten with sugar, adjusting to taste.
If desired, add vanilla, coconut, or lemon zest.
If using eggs, beat them and stir in before serving.
Let the pudding stand for 2 to 3 minutes before serving.

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.

Vanilla + coconuttop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,294 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Rice + coconuttop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,063 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Whole rice: Softens as it simmers in the milk, giving the pudding its body and thick texture.
New milk: Cooks with the rice to form the creamy base and carries the sweetness.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding; amount is adjusted to taste.
Eggs: Optional; when stirred in, they add richness and help thicken the pudding.

“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.