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Spanish Rice

A simple rice dish cooked with tomatoes, onions, and seasonings.

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

  1. Fry slices of onion in bacon dripping or butter.

  2. Add ½ cup of well-washed rice and stir until brown.

  3. Pour in 1 quart of tomatoes and cook until done.

  4. Season with salt and chili powder to taste.

  5. Stir frequently to prevent the rice from settling and scorching. Add a little water if the mixture becomes dry.

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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  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

Rice
Provides the starchy body of the dish, absorbing tomato liquid as it cooks.
Tomatoes
Supply the liquid and acidity that cook the rice and give the dish its flavor.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, adding savory depth to the base.
Bacon dripping or butter
Fat that carries the onion's flavor and helps the rice brown slightly.

The step that matters

Stir the rice frequently. Rice is heavy and sinks toward the bottom of the pan, where it can settle, stick, and scorch. Regular stirring keeps the grains suspended and the heat even, and adding a little water when the mixture dries keeps the rice cooking without burning.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, onion, butter. 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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