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Rice with Tomatos

A baked rice dish topped with a tomato and onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rice with Tomatos

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the rice

  1. Boil rice in hot water until soft, shaking occasionally. Do not stir.

  2. Drain rice.

  3. Mix in milk, beaten egg, butter, pepper, and salt.

  4. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  5. If rice hasn't absorbed all the milk, drain again.

Shape and bake the rice

  1. Shape rice into a wall on a dish.

  2. Brush with yolk of beaten egg.

  3. Bake in the oven until firm at 400°F (200°C).

Make the tomato sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine tomato conserve, pepper, salt, sugar, and chopped onion.

  2. Stew for 20 minutes.

  3. Stir in butter and bread crumbs.

  4. Stew for 3-4 minutes to thicken.

Serve

  1. Pour tomato mixture into the center of the rice.

  2. Serve.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Cooks soft and then sets firm, forming the structure that holds the wall shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the cooked rice as it is absorbed.
Beaten egg
Binds the rice mixture and, brushed on top, helps it brown in the oven.
Tomato conserve
Provides the main tomato flavour and body of the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Thickens the tomato sauce as it stews.

The step that matters

Do not stir the rice while boiling. Stirring releases starch from the rice grains, which makes the cooked rice gummy and weakens its ability to hold the shaped wall.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, egg, butter, pepper, tomato, sugar. 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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