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Rice, Andalusian

A Spanish-style rice dish cooked with veal or poultry, tomatoes, onions, saffron, and olive oil or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Rice, Andalusian

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice

  1. Warm the olive oil or butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the rice and veal or poultry, stirring to combine.

  3. Incorporate the tomato sauce or fresh tomatoes, onions, parsley, saffron, pepper, salt, cayenne, and garlic if using. Stir the mixture and let it stew gently for 10 minutes.

  4. Pour in the stock or water, cover the saucepan, and simmer until the rice absorbs the liquid, about 30 to 45 minutes.

  5. Drain any excess oil using a heated strainer.

Serve

  1. Serve the bright yellow rice on a hot dish, browning the top with a hot shovel or salamander for 1 to 2 minutes.

  2. Accompany with cut lemons for guests to squeeze over their plates.

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. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Parsley + saffrontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Rice + saffrontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Tomato + saffrontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together369 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Absorbs the stock and sets into the body of the dish as it simmers.
Olive oil or butter
Carries the saffron and onion flavour and coats the rice grains as they toast.
Veal or poultry
Contributes savoury meat flavour that seasons the rice as it stews.
Tomato sauce or fresh tomatoes
Adds acidity and moisture that give the rice its colour and tang.
Onions
Build sweetness and savoury depth as they soften in the fat.
Saffron
Gives the rice its bright yellow colour and a distinctive aroma.

The step that matters

Simmering the rice in the stock. Once the liquid is added, the lid must stay on and the heat stay gentle. Lifting the lid or boiling hard lets steam escape and leaves the rice unevenly cooked or dry.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, rice, veal, tomato, parsley, saffron, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, rice, veal, tomato, parsley, saffron, pepper. 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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