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 Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the rice in two or three waters, then place it in a saucepan with cold water and bring to a boil until it swells.
In a bowl, break the eggs and add the sugar and milk, stirring to combine.
Remove the skin from the suet and shred it finely.
Grease a quart dish with clarified dripping or butter.
Drain the rice in a colander and lay it in the greased dish.
Bake and serve
Pour the milk and egg mixture over the rice and sprinkle the shredded suet on top.
Grate the nutmeg over the top.
Bake in an oven at 400°F (200°C) for 40 minutes to 1 hour.
Serve once baked.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,779 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Forms the bulk of the pudding and absorbs the milk as it bakes, giving body.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs and that the eggs set into a custard.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to bind the milk and rice into a creamy, sliceable custard.
- Suet
- Melts into the pudding as it bakes, adding richness and moisture.
- Moist sugar
- Adds sweetness and a soft, molasses-like flavour to the custard.
The step that matters
Boiling the rice until it swells. Rice that is only partly swollen before baking will stay firm and absorb the custard unevenly, so it should be fully softened before it goes into the dish.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, egg, sugar, butter):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Turmericfits less well
- Gingerfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, egg, sugar, 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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