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Boiled Rice

Boiled rice is cooked in water until tender, then served plain or with salt, butter, and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Boiled Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Wash the rice well.

  2. Cook the rice in a double boiler with plenty of boiling water.

  3. Cook until the rice is tender and the grains are whole.

Serve

  1. Serve plain or season with coarse sea salt and butter.

  2. Add cream if desired.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the main body of the dish as its starch softens and swells during cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the cooked grains.
Cream
Adds richness and a soft, creamy texture when added.

The step that matters

Cook until the rice is tender and the grains are whole. Stopping too early leaves the starch firm and chalky, while cooking too long in excess water can make grains soft and mushy. Checking for tenderness while the grains stay intact gives the best texture.

“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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