Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Quick Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the rice until soft.
Break in the eggs and add the cream or milk and nutmeg.
Bring to a boil again.
Serve with bits of butter on top.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,779 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,920 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together24,377 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 as its starch softens and thickens during boiling.
- Eggs
- Set as they heat, helping thicken the pudding and giving it structure.
- Cream or milk
- Adds moisture and richness, giving the pudding a soft, creamy texture.
The step that matters
Bring to a boil again. Once the eggs are added, the mixture must be heated enough to cook and thicken them. Boiling too hard or too long, however, can curdle the eggs and make the texture grainy.
“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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