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 ↓
Rice and Orange Pudding Frozen
Ingredients
Directions
Make the rice base
Wash the rice carefully and place it in a saucepan with the cold water. Bring the mixture to a boil.
Pour off the water.
Add the milk and grated rind of the oranges. Cook for 1 hour in a double boiler.
Stir in the sugar. Cook for an additional 30 minutes.
Remove from heat. Add salt. Let cool.
Finish and freeze
Once cool, mix in the orange juice. Mix in the whipped cream.
Freeze like ice cream.
Serve with iced orange sauce.
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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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Rice + orangetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Orange + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,696 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Starch that thickens the milk mixture into a creamy, pudding-like body as it cooks.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy base that the rice cooks into, adding richness and smooth texture.
- Cream
- Adds fat and whipped air, making the frozen pudding softer and lighter in texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and lowers the freezing point, keeping it scoopable when frozen.
- Oranges
- Supply flavour from the rind and juice, adding aroma and acidity to the sweet base.
The step that matters
Cook the rice and milk slowly in a double boiler. Gentle, indirect heat keeps the milk from scorching or curdling while the rice softens and thickens. Scorched milk gives off a burnt taste that cannot be removed later.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, cream, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, cream, 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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