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Dessert

Lemon Rice Pudding

A sweet pudding made from rice, milk, eggs, sugar, and lemon, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Lemon Rice Pudding

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 ↓

Lemon Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the rice in water until dry.

  2. Add milk and boil until thickened.

  3. Stir in beaten egg yolks, sugar, and lemon rind.

  4. Pour mixture into a pudding dish.

Top and bake

  1. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks, then add sugar and lemon juice to the beaten whites.

  2. Spread meringue over the pudding.

  3. Bake until browned.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 down in water and milk to form the thick, creamy body of the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that thickens with the rice into a creamy custard base.
Egg yolks
Thicken the pudding and add richness when stirred into the hot mixture.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the meringue topping, which sets and browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the meringue become stiff and browned.
Lemon
Rind adds aroma and juice adds acidity that brightens the sweet pudding.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites need to be whipped until they hold firm peaks so the meringue stays airy and sets properly. Underwhipped whites will weep or collapse, and sugar should be added once the foam is formed to keep it stable.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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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