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Rice Fbumenty

A sweet rice pudding made with boiled rice, eggs, sugar, milk, butter, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Fbumenty

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Boil the rice in a covered pot with water until perfectly soft.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and stir in the sugar, milk, and salt.

  2. Add the rice to the egg mixture and bring to a boil, stirring continuously for about five minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into large bowls or covered dishes.

  2. Dot the top with bits of butter and grate nutmeg over it.

  3. Let it cool before serving.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the pudding, absorbing the liquid and giving it a soft, thick texture.
Eggs
Set when heated, thickening the mixture and giving it structure.
Milk
Supplies the liquid base and moisture, and helps create a creamy custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to the pudding's flavor balance.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring while bringing the egg mixture to a boil. Eggs can scramble or curdle if overheated or left unstirred. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly, so the eggs thicken smoothly into a custard rather than forming lumps.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

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