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Roast Pork and Rice

A roasted pork roast served with rice cooked in butter and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Roast Pork and Rice

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a covered roaster, melt the butter and brown the pork roast on the stovetop.

  3. Season the meat well with coarse sea salt and black pepper, then coat it with flour.

Braise and bake

  1. Add 1½ to 2 cups of washed rice around the roast.

  2. Pour boiling water over the roast and rice until just covered.

  3. Cover the roaster.

  4. Place the roaster in the oven.

  5. Cook until the pork is tender.

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. Pork + ricetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pork roast
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through slow, covered cooking in moisture.
Flour
Coats the meat so it browns well and helps form a light crust.
Washed rice
Absorbs the cooking liquid and juices from the roast, becoming soft and flavorful.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the pork and contributes richness to the pan.

The step that matters

Brown the pork roast before adding liquid. Searing the surface in fat creates browned flavor through the Maillard reaction. Browning before the covered braise builds flavor that the moist cooking would otherwise not produce.

“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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