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Tomato Rice Au Gratin

A baked rice dish with tomato sauce, broth, cheese, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Tomato Rice Au Gratin

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.

Make the rice

  1. In a saucepan, combine the rice, tomato sauce, broth, salt, and pepper.

  2. Mix well and boil for 35 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Add the grated cheese and butter, stirring until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle bread crumbs and small bits of butter on top.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 12 minutes.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw rice
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the liquids as it cooks, giving it body.
Tomato sauce
Provides moisture and acidity that flavour the rice as it simmers.
Broth
Adds liquid for the rice to cook in and savoury depth.
Grated cheese
Melts into the rice, adding richness and a savoury, binding texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Boiling the rice mixture for 35 minutes. Rice keeps absorbing liquid and thickening as it cooks, so stirring occasionally prevents sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pan while the grains soften evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, pepper, cheese, butter, bread. 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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