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Dessert

Rice Supreme

A sweet rice pudding topped with pineapple syrup, whipped cream, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and pineapple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 911 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Rice Supreme

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice custard

  1. Cook 1-2 cups of rice in salted water until tender, then drain.

  2. In a double boiler, combine the drained rice, 2 quarts of milk, and scald.

  3. Add 1 ½ cups of sugar and 6 tablespoons of corn starch, and cook for 25 minutes.

  4. Beat 10 egg yolks and mix with the rice mixture, then add 2 tablespoons of butter and cook until set.

  5. Stir in 2 teaspoons of vanilla and let cool.

Make the pineapple topping and serve

  1. In a separate pot, mix 2 cups of brown sugar and 2 small cans of crushed pineapple, and cook until thick and syrupy, then cool.

  2. Serve the rice topped with the pineapple mixture, whipped cream, and nuts.

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. Vanilla + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Rice + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

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

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

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

  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
Forms the body of the pudding, giving it bulk and a tender, creamy texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs and cooks in, creating the pudding base.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture as it heats, giving the pudding its set and smooth body.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the custard as they cook with the hot mixture.
Brown sugar
Forms a thick, syrupy topping with the pineapple and adds caramel-like sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolks into the custard. Egg yolks can scramble if added to very hot mixture without being tempered first. Cooking gently while stirring keeps the custard smooth as the yolks thicken it.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

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