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Rice Ice Cream

A frozen dessert made by mixing cooked rice with vanilla ice cream and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,352 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Rice Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the rice with the lemon rind until very tender.

  2. Prepare vanilla ice cream according to your recipe.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once the ice cream is frozen, stir in the cooked rice.

  2. Make this cream at least one hour 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. Rice + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

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

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

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

Vanilla and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,301 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
Cooked soft, its starch gives the dessert body and a tender, slightly chewy bite.
Cream
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Vanilla ice cream
Provides the sweet, creamy frozen base that the rice is folded into.
Lemon rind
Its oils add bright citrus aroma that flavours the rice as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook the rice until very tender. Grains that are not fully softened stay firm and chalky in a smooth frozen dessert. Cooking them fully in the rind lets the starch swell and the lemon aroma soak in.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, vanilla, 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.

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