Why it works: Milk and rice 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 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.
Prepare
Wash the rice thoroughly.
Mix and bake
Mix the rice, milk, salt, sugar, and lemon rind or cinnamon in a bowl.
Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.
Cover the dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.
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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Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together565 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,742 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Provides the body of the pudding as it softens and absorbs the milk while baking.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that cooks down into a creamy, set custard-like texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and contributes to browning on the surface of the pudding.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Baking gently and long enough lets the milk thicken and the rice soften fully. Removing it too early leaves a loose, watery pudding, while overbaking can make it dry and tough.
Swap the raisin
The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, rice, sugar, lemon):
- Vanillafits better
- Orangefits better
- Coconutfits better
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rice, sugar, 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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