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Baked Rice with Nutmeg

A simple baked rice dish flavored with nutmeg and butter, optionally with raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Baked Rice with Nutmeg

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Add nutmeg to the rice and pour it into a baking dish.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring often.

  4. Increase the heat to 400°F (200°C) and cook until the rice is tender and slightly browned.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with butter, adding raisins if preferred.

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. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

  3. Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the dish, softening as it cooks and setting into a tender, sliceable mass.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour that runs through the rice as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smooth mouthfeel and carrying flavour when served.

The step that matters

Increasing the heat to 400°F (200°C). The higher heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, but it can also dry or scorch the rice. Watch closely so the top browns while the grains stay tender.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, nutmeg, 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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