Why it works: Rice and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Chicken Hash with Rice Toast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rice
Prepare the rice the night before and place it in a square, narrow bread pan in the refrigerator.
The next morning, cut the rice into half‑inch slices and rub each slice with warm butter.
Toast the rice slices on a broiler until they are a delicate brown.
Arrange the toasted rice on a warm platter.
Make the hash
Pick the meat from the bones of the cold chicken and chop it finely.
In a frying pan, heat butter and add the chopped chicken with a little water to moisten it.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, and heat through.
Serve the chicken hash over the rice toast immediately.
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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Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,769 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,379 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,902 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cooked rice
- Chilling firms the starch, so the slices hold their shape and toast crisp instead of falling apart.
- Butter
- Fat that carries flavour and promotes browning on the rice toast and in the frying pan.
- Leftover cooked chicken
- Main protein of the hash, chopped fine so it blends into a moist, cohesive mixture.
The step that matters
Toasting the rice slices. Chilled rice dries and firms as it sits, so it toasts to a crisp surface. Under a broiler the slices can scorch quickly, so watch for a delicate brown rather than dark colour.
“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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