Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
A George Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Boil the rice in milk with lemon peel until tender.
Drain the rice.
Mash the apples until dry.
Mix the apples with the rice.
Add white wine, egg yolks, orange peel, citron, and sugar. Mix well.
Assemble and bake
Line a mold with pastry.
Beat egg whites until frothy. Fold the egg whites into the mixture.
Fill the mold. Bake until golden brown.
Serve
Serve upside down with sauce made from wine, sugar, egg yolks, and butter. Simmer sauce until thick.
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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Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Apple + white winetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together372 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,832 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Whole rice
- Cooked soft and bulks out the filling, giving it body.
- Apples
- Provide the main fruit flavor and moisture once mashed and drained.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the filling and help it set when baked.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to foam, they lighten the mixture and help it rise in the oven.
- Milk
- Cooks the rice until tender and adds richness to the base.
- White wine
- Adds acidity and aroma to the filling and the sauce.
The step that matters
Folding the egg whites into the mixture. Whipped whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them in hard knocks that air out, and the pudding bakes up dense instead of light.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, lemon, white wine, egg, orange, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Peachfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, lemon, white wine, egg, orange, 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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