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Rice Meringue Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Meringue Pudding

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.

Make the rice base

  1. Combine 1 quart of milk and 1 cup of rice in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer on low heat until thick and rice is tender.

  3. Stir in 1 tablespoon of butter, 3 tablespoons of sugar, and the yolks of 3 eggs while hot.

  4. Add salt to taste and the grated peel of 1 lemon.

  5. Pour the mixture into a shallow pudding dish lined with pastry.

Bake and top with meringue

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

  2. Beat the whites of 3 eggs until stiff.

  3. Gradually add 6 tablespoons of powdered sugar and the juice of 1 lemon.

  4. Spread the meringue over the pudding.

  5. Return to the oven for 5 minutes.

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. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 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

Rice
Thickens the milk as it simmers, giving the pudding body and a tender texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice absorbs and thickens into a creamy custard-like filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich and set the filling, adding richness and firmness when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the light, airy meringue topping.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whites to stabilise the meringue and add sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel in the filling.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be whipped to a stiff foam before sugar is added gradually; under-whipped or greasy whites will not hold peaks and the meringue may weep or collapse in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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