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Side Dish

A baked casserole of cold meat, rice, milk, egg, and seasonings.

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 cold meat and wet it with gravy if convenient, then place it on a platter.

  2. In a bowl, combine cold rice, milk, and 1 egg. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. If there is not enough rice, add powdered bread crumbs to the mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread the rice mixture thickly around the platter with the meat.

  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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  4. Rice + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

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 topping and holds its shape when spread over the meat.
Egg
Binds the rice mixture so it sets together rather than falling apart.
Milk
Adds moisture so the rice mixture stays soft while it heats.
Powdered bread crumbs
Absorbs liquid and thickens the mixture when there is not enough rice.
Chopped cold meat
Forms the base layer that the rice mixture is spread over.

The step that matters

Spread the rice mixture thickly around the platter with the meat. A thick layer of rice mixture protects the meat from drying out in the oven and lets the top brown while the inside heats through. A thin layer dries quickly and can scorch before the meat warms.

“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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