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Side Dish

A baked rice casserole with cooked meat, gravy, milk, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Side Dish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Season the chopped cooked meat with gravy.

  2. Place the seasoned meat on a platter.

Make the rice mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine cold rice, milk, and 1 beaten egg.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper and salt.

  3. If there is not enough rice, add breadcrumbs to the mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread the rice mixture thickly around the platter.

  2. Place the platter in a 350°F (175°C) oven to heat and brown.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,481 recipes

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

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold rice
Forms the bulk of the casserole and gives the rice mixture its body.
Egg
Binds the rice and milk so the mixture holds together when heated.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the rice mixture as it heats.
Chopped cooked meat
Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the dish.
Breadcrumbs
Absorbs extra moisture and helps firm the mixture when rice is short.

The step that matters

Spread the rice mixture thickly around the platter. A thick, even layer heats through without drying out or burning at the edges while the top browns. Thin spots can dry out before the center is hot.

“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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