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Whole Rice Pudding

A sweet pudding made from whole rice, suet, currants, bread, sugar, eggs, milk, nutmeg, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Whole Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the rice

  1. Boil 1½ cups of water and add 12 teaspoons of whole rice. Cook until the rice swells.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of minced suet and 4 tablespoons of cleaned currants.

Make the pudding

  1. Add 2 tablespoons of grated bread, 6 tablespoons of brown sugar, and 2 well-beaten eggs.

  2. Pour in 1 quart of warm milk, 1 teaspoon of grated nutmeg, and 1 teaspoon of ginger. Mix well.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered dish and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set.

  2. For a smaller portion, halve the ingredients.

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. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Rice + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,196 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole rice
Swells in water and forms the bulk and body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding its structure and custard-like firmness.
Milk
Provides liquid and richness, and sets with the eggs into a creamy texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses flavor that deepens during baking.
Minced suet
Adds fat, contributing richness and a tender mouthfeel.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, bread, sugar, egg, milk, nutmeg, ginger):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, bread, sugar, egg, milk, nutmeg, ginger. 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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