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 Mush
Ingredients
Directions
Cook and cool
Cook the rice and cornmeal with salt in the milk until well cooked.
Let it cool, then cut into slices.
Fry and serve
Fry the slices in butter on a griddle until golden brown.
Serve hot with syrup.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Milk + syruptop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,143 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Rice + syruptop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together430 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Softens as it cooks and gives the pudding its body and chewy texture.
- Cornmeal
- Thickens the milk and adds a slightly grainy texture to the pudding.
- Milk
- Cooks the rice and cornmeal and adds richness and creaminess.
- Butter
- Browns on the griddle, adding flavour and a crisp golden crust to the slices.
The step that matters
Let it cool before slicing. As the cooked rice and cornmeal cool, their starches set and firm up. Cutting too early leaves the pudding soft, so the slices break or fall apart in the pan.
“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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