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Kedgeree

A British dish of rice, salmon, eggs, butter, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Kedgeree

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add salt and pepper.

  2. Stir in the boiled rice.

  3. Remove bones from the salmon and break it into small pieces, adding it along with any liquid from the can.

  4. Stir until the mixture is boiling hot.

  5. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  6. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when stirred into the hot mixture, binding the rice and salmon together and adding richness.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, coating the rice grains and carrying the seasoning through the dish.
Boiled rice
Forms the bulk of the dish, with its starch giving body and soaking up the butter.
Salmon
Provides the main protein and savoury flavour, flaked through the rice.

The step that matters

Add the beaten eggs and mix well. Eggs set when heated, so they should be stirred into the hot mixture off the heat's full force. Overheating or leaving them too long can make them scramble into curds rather than blending smoothly through the rice.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, rice, butter, 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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