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RicE

A simple rice pudding made by boiling rice in milk, sweetened with sugar and flavored with lemon peel and optional nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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RicE

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

RicE

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the rice in the milk for one hour, stirring gently and often.

  2. Add the sugar and flavor with lemon peel rubbed on some of the sugar, or a little nutmeg if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve warm.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch swells and softens in the milk, thickening the pudding into a creamy texture.
Milk
Simmered slowly with the rice, it provides the liquid that cooks the grains into a creamy base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the milk and rice.

The step that matters

Stirring the rice in the milk. Rice and milk can scorch on the bottom of the pan during a long simmer. Stirring gently and often keeps the starch from sticking and burning while the grains soften evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, sugar, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, 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.

More rice pudding recipes

Baked 88Apple 84with Meringue 40Boiled 38French 30Lemon 29 See all 1,220 →

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