Skip to main content
Dessert

Red Rice

A fruit pudding made from stewed red currants and raspberries, thickened with cornflour or ground rice and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Red Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the juice

  1. Stew the red currants in water until the juice flows freely.

  2. Add the raspberries just before the currants are ready.

  3. Strain the juice and measure it.

  4. Sweeten the juice to taste.

Thicken and set

  1. Add cornflour or ground rice in the same quantity as for a Blancmange.

  2. Pour the mixture into a damp mould.

  3. Once cold, turn it onto a glass dish and serve with cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Red currant + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + ricetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 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

Red currants
Provide the main tart flavour and the juice that forms the pudding.
Raspberries
Add fragrant aroma and extra fruit flavour to the juice.
Cornflour or ground rice
Thickens the juice so it sets into a firm, sliceable pudding when cold.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart juice to balance its acidity.

The step that matters

Adding the thickener to the juice. Starch must be fully dispersed and cooked to thicken properly; added to hot juice without stirring it can lump, and undercooked starch will not set the pudding firmly.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, rice, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rice, cream. 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.

You might also like

Rice CakeRice Cake120 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesRice CreamRice Cream43 recipesRice JellyRice Jelly42 recipes