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Dessert

Rice Meringue

A baked rice pudding topped with a lightly browned meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Meringue

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rice

  1. Boil the rice in water until soft, then drain and cool.

Bake the pudding

  1. Add the milk, egg yolks, sugar, and nutmeg (or flavoring) to the rice.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

  3. Let it cool.

Top with meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the sugar and flavoring.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pudding and slightly brown it in the oven.

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

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

  2. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Rice
Forms the body of the pudding, softened first so it bakes into a tender custard base.
Milk
Provides the liquid that sets around the rice into a creamy custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set during baking and add richness.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the light meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and stabilises the whipped egg white meringue.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to firm peaks without any trace of yolk or fat, since fat prevents the foam from holding its volume. Sugar added after whipping helps the meringue stay glossy and stable while it bakes and browns.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Turmericfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, egg, 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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