Name: Honey, How Come the Rice Looks As Though It's Got Dirt?
Ingredients: 1½ cups long-grain brown rice; 1 can beef consommé (10 oz); 1 can French onion soup (10 oz); 1 can sliced mushrooms, not drained (4 oz); 1 stick butter, cut into bits

Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,232 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Honey, How Come the Rice Looks As Though It's Got Dirt?

Oven350°F

Time60 minutes

Ingredients

1½ cups long-grain brown rice
1 can beef consommé (10 oz)
1 can French onion soup (10 oz)
1 can sliced mushrooms, not drained (4 oz)
1 stick butter, cut into bits

Directions

Combine rice, beef consommé, French onion soup, and mushrooms in a medium-size oven baking dish.
Stir all ingredients together, then dab butter bits on top.
Cover and bake at 350°F for 60 minutes.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Rice + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,515 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together10,433 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Long-grain brown rice: Forms the bulk of the casserole and absorbs liquid as it bakes, becoming tender.
Beef consommé: Supplies the cooking liquid that the rice absorbs, adding savory beef flavor.
French onion soup: Adds liquid and savory onion flavor that permeates the rice during baking.
Sliced mushrooms: Adds earthy flavor and moisture to the casserole.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, and browns lightly on top as it bakes.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, beef, mushroom, butter):

Potatoabout as good a flavor fit
Tomatoabout as good a flavor fit
Asparagusabout as good a flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, beef, mushroom, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.