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Turkish Pilaf

A rice pilaf made with butter, tomato soup, celery, green peppers, onions, bay leaves, salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Turkish Pilaf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick over the rice and wash it in cold water.

  2. Combine onions, bay leaves, green peppers, celery, and salt with water in a large pot.

Cook

  1. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes.

  2. Slowly add the rice to the pot.

  3. Boil for another 30 minutes.

  4. Stir in the butter and tomato soup.

  5. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 dish and absorbs the cooking liquid as it softens.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and giving a smoother mouthfeel.
Tomato soup
Adds acidity, sweetness and color to the cooking liquid.
Onions
Build savory depth as they soften and release their sugars into the liquid.

The step that matters

Slowly add the rice to the pot. Adding rice gradually keeps the liquid at a steady boil so the grains cook evenly. Dumping it in all at once can drop the temperature sharply and cause clumping or uneven texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, tomato, celery, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, tomato, celery, pepper. 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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