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Lemon Frosted Rice Pudding

A lemon-flavored rice pudding baked with a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rice 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 Frosted Rice Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pudding

  1. Combine the rice and milk in a double boiler and cook until the rice is tender.

  2. Remove from heat and let it cool slightly.

  3. Stir in 2 whole eggs, the yolks of 2 eggs, lemon juice, and sugar.

  4. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

Top and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add ½ cup sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue on top of the pudding and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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. Milk + ricetop 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
Cooks into tender grains that give the pudding its body and soft texture.
Eggs
Set during baking to thicken the pudding and enrich its custard structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the meringue stay glossy and stable.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright lemon aroma that balance the sweetness.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid base that cooks the rice and forms the creamy pudding.

The step that matters

Baking the meringue until golden brown. Egg white meringue can weep or collapse if overbaked, and it needs enough heat to brown lightly. Watch the color rather than the clock, since the hot oven browns it quickly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rice, 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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