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 Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the pudding
Combine the milk and rice in a pot.
Simmer slowly until thick and the rice is tender.
Stir in the butter, sugar, egg yolks, and salt while the mixture is hot.
Pour the mixture into a shallow pudding dish lined with pastry.
Bake and top
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.
Beat the egg whites with powdered sugar and lemon juice.
Cover the pudding with the egg white mixture and return to the oven for 5 minutes.
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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Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 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).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Milk
- Cooks with the rice to form the thick, creamy body of the pudding.
- Rice
- Softens as it simmers and thickens the milk into a pudding texture.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the custard and help it set as it cooks.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the topping brown lightly.
- Egg whites
- Whipped with sugar and lemon juice to form a light topping that browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Simmer slowly until thick and the rice is tender. Cooking gently keeps the milk from scorching on the bottom of the pot and lets the rice absorb liquid evenly, giving a smooth, thick base.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, rice, butter, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rice, butter, sugar, egg. 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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