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Chicken Baked in Rice

A whole chicken baked with bacon, onion, and veal stock, topped with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Chicken Baked in Rice

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.

Prepare and layer

  1. Season the chicken joints with salt, pepper, and mace.

  2. Place bacon slices at the bottom of a deep dish.

  3. Lay the seasoned chicken on top of the bacon.

  4. Sprinkle the minced onion over the chicken.

  5. Pour the veal stock over the chicken.

  6. Cover the dish with boiled rice.

Bake

  1. Cover the dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which firms and cooks through during the long bake.
Bacon
Renders fat into the base, adding savoury flavour and moisture to the chicken.
Veal stock
Adds liquid and savoury depth that keeps the chicken and rice moist while baking.
Boiled rice
Forms a starchy layer on top that absorbs cooking juices and adds body.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury flavour as it softens in the juices.

The step that matters

Covering the dish before baking. Keeping the lid on traps steam, so the chicken cooks through gently and stays moist instead of drying out in the oven's dry heat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, onion, veal, rice):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, onion, veal, rice. 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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