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Dessert

Apples and Rice

A baked casserole of apples and rice, flavored with cinnamon and jam, topped with pastry and sweetmeats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apples and Rice

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the rice in milk with the stick of cinnamon until tender.

  2. Peel the apples, scoop out the cores, and fill them with raspberry jam.

Assemble the casserole

  1. Prepare a deep dish with pastry.

  2. Place the apples inside the dish, leaving space between them.

  3. Fill the spaces with the cooked rice.

Finish and bake

  1. Brush the entire dish with the egg yolk.

  2. Sprinkle sugar thickly over the dish.

  3. Decorate the top with sweetmeats.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for one hour.

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. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Apple + raspberrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooked in milk to form a tender, soft filling that fills the spaces between the apples.
Apples
Form the main body of the casserole and soften as they bake, giving bulk and fruitiness.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to make it tender and creamy as it absorbs the liquid.
Raspberry jam
Fills the apple cores, adding sweetness and a fruity flavour as it warms.
Egg yolk
Brushed over the pastry, it promotes browning and a glossy golden finish.

The step that matters

Brushing the dish with egg yolk. Egg yolk contains proteins and fats that brown and set on contact with heat, giving the pastry its golden colour and gloss. Applying it evenly avoids pale patches.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, rice, milk, cinnamon, apple, 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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