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Dessert

Rice and Apple Meringue

A baked dessert of boiled rice, apples, and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Apple Meringue

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.

Prepare the apple sauce

  1. Make apple sauce and sweeten it with half of the sugar.

Make the rice base

  1. Mix the rice with the beaten yolks of the eggs, remaining sugar, and milk.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

Top and finish

  1. Spread the apple sauce on top.

  2. Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon of sugar until stiff.

  3. Cover the apples with the meringue.

  4. Place in the oven to slightly 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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  4. Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the rice custard, while whites whip into the meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and custard and helps the egg whites stay stiff.
Milk
Provides liquid and tenderness for the baked rice custard.
Boiled rice
Forms the body of the custard, absorbing milk and egg to set into a soft base.
Sour apples
Add tart flavour and moisture that contrasts with the sweet meringue.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be beaten fully and free of yolk or fat to form a stable foam. Under-whipped or greasy whites weep or slump, and the meringue will not hold its shape or brown well.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, egg, sugar, milk, lemon. 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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