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Dessert

Rice Soufflet

A baked rice soufflé flavored with lemon peel and optional orange‑flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 851 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Rice Soufflet

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 base

  1. Soak the rice and lemon peel in ½ pint of milk for 1 hour.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the soaked rice, lemon peel, coarse sea salt, and gradually add 1 pint of new milk along with the butter.

  3. Stir the mixture until it boils, then continue stirring for 5 minutes.

  4. Allow the mixture to cool, then add the beaten egg yolks and pounded loaf sugar.

Bake and serve

  1. Gently fold in the well‑beaten egg whites and shape the soufflé like a pyramid in a dish.

  2. Bake in a 350 °F (175 °C) oven until set.

  3. Glaze with sifted loaf sugar while baking, if desired.

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 + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Rice + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into foam that lifts and gives the soufflé its airy, risen structure.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a tender, custardy texture when baked.
Rice
Soaked and simmered into the milk, thickening the base and giving body to the soufflé.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice cooks into, adding moisture and softness.
Pounded loaf sugar
Sweetens the base and adds tenderness to the soufflé.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped well and folded in gently. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam, so the soufflé will rise less and bake up dense.

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, rice, lemon, walnut, butter, egg, sugar):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rice, lemon, walnut, butter, egg, sugar. 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.

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