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Dessert

Rice Meringue

A baked dessert of rice, milk, eggs, and sugar topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk 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 ↓

Rice Meringue

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the rice base

  1. Wash the rice and place it in a pan with the milk.

  2. Cook slowly for 3 hours.

  3. Transfer to a bowl to cool.

Bake and brown

  1. Add the beaten egg yolks and sugar; mix well.

  2. Pour into a greased dish and bake for 20 minutes at 300°F (150°C).

  3. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and heap on top.

  4. Dredge with sugar and return to the oven until pale 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. Rice + milktop 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. Egg + sugartop 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
Thickens the milk as it cooks slowly, giving the base a soft, pudding-like body.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to form the creamy base and adds moisture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and set the base, giving it richness and a tender structure when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form the airy meringue topping that puffs and browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and, dredged on top, helps the meringue brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be fully whipped to hold air; under-whipped or greasy whites will deflate and weep rather than form a stable, browned meringue topping.

“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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