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Spanish Rice

A simple rice dish cooked with butter, tomatoes, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Spanish Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Boil the rice as you would for curry.

  2. Fry the rice in butter until browned.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the chopped tomatoes and grated cheese.

  2. Serve piled high on a plate.

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

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 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
Forms the bulk of the dish and provides its main starchy structure.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and helps the rice brown in the pan.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and a mild acidity that brightens the savory rice.
Grated cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and melts slightly into the rice.

The step that matters

Fry the rice in butter until browned. Rice needs enough fat and direct contact with the hot pan so its surface dries and browns, which builds toasty flavor. Crowding the pan or stopping too early leaves it soft and pale.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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