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Dessert

Baked Rice Pudding

A baked pudding made from rice, skim milk, sugar, and beef or mutton dripping, flavored with laurel leaf and optional spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Baked 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Combine rice and skim milk in a baking dish.

  3. Stir in sugar, dripping, and laurel leaf.

  4. Add nutmeg, lemon peel, or allspice if using.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until set, about 1 hour, until the pudding is solid.

  2. Let cool slightly before serving.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Laurel + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together627 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Provides the starch and bulk that thicken into the body of the pudding as it bakes.
Skim milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice cooks in and sets into a custard-like texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps with browning on the surface of the pudding.
Beef or mutton dripping
Adds fat, which contributes richness and a softer mouthfeel to the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Rice pudding firms as the starch gelatinises and the milk proteins coagulate in the oven. Pulling it too early leaves it loose and watery, while over-baking can make it dry and tough.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, sugar, beef, laurel, lemon, allspice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, sugar, beef, laurel, lemon, allspice. 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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