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Dessert

Apricots a LA Conde

A sweet rice pudding flavored with lemon or vanilla, topped with apricot compote, cherries, and angelica.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and angelica match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 189 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Apricots a LA Conde

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the rice

  1. Put the rice in a saucepan and cover with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then strain and rinse with cold water.

  3. Return the rice to the saucepan, adding lemon peel or vanilla, milk, sugar, and butter.

  4. Bring to a boil.

  5. Cover with buttered paper and simmer gently without stirring until nearly all the milk is absorbed.

  6. Add another ¼ pint of milk and cook until the rice is tender and grains are separate.

Mold and bake

  1. Butter a wide round mold and press the rice into it.

  2. Place the mold in a sauté pan with boiling water.

  3. Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes until the top is dry.

Serve

  1. Turn the rice out onto a serving dish.

  2. Top with hot apricot compote.

  3. Garnish with shredded cherries and strips of angelica around the edge.

  4. Serve with apricot sauce.

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. Lemon + angelicatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Apricot + angelicatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Rice + angelicatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together54 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carolina rice
Starch that softens and thickens the milk as it cooks, forming the pudding's body.
Milk
Liquid absorbed by the rice, giving the pudding its creamy texture.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a softer, richer flavor.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Hot compote of apricots
Adds fruity sweetness and acidity that contrast with the mild rice.

The step that matters

Simmer without stirring until nearly all the milk is absorbed. Stirring releases starch from the rice grains and makes the pudding gluey, while gentle heat under a cover lets the grains cook evenly and stay separate.

Swap the angelica

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Angelicathe original

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