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 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.
Cook the rice and milk
Wash the rice well and boil it in a small pan with 1 cup of water for 5 minutes.
Pour in the milk and let it boil for 30 minutes without stirring.
Finish and bake
Remove the pan from the heat and add the sugar and marmalade, stirring well.
Beat the eggs and mix them in last.
Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.
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.
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Whole rice
- Provides the starchy body that thickens the pudding as it cooks in milk.
- Milk
- Supplies the liquid that cooks the rice and gives the pudding its creamy texture.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to give the pudding a firm, custard-like structure.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavor of the milk and marmalade.
- Marmalade
- Adds sweetness, citrus acidity and aroma to the pudding.
The step that matters
Mix the eggs in last. Eggs set when heated, so they should be added off the heat and mixed in after the rice and milk have cooled slightly. Adding them to a boiling mixture can scramble them and leave the pudding grainy instead of smooth.
“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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