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Dessert

Rice Meringue

A baked rice pudding topped with a sweet meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rice Meringue

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rice

  1. Boil the rice in 1 quart of water until tender, then drain in a colander.

Make the pudding

  1. Add the rice to the milk, then mix in the butter, egg yolks, and sugar beaten together until light.

  2. Stir in the juice and rind of lemon, then turn the mixture into a baking dish.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until foamy, then gradually add 6 tablespoons of powdered sugar while beating until stiff.

  2. Drop the meringue on top of the pudding and brown slightly in the oven.

  3. Serve cold.

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

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

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

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

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the pudding and absorbs the milk and sugar as it cooks.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the custard, while whipped whites form the meringue topping.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks with the rice and gives the pudding a soft, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites in the meringue.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the pudding.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten until foamy, then sugar added gradually, to form a stable foam. Under-beaten or greasy whites will not hold their peaks and the meringue may weep or collapse in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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