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Rice Meridon

Rice Meridon is a baked rice casserole with ragout or forcemeat, coated with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rice Meridon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the rice

  1. Boil the rice in milk for 1 hour, stirring to prevent sticking.

  2. Stir in the butter, eggs, and salt, and cook until the eggs thicken, stirring constantly.

  3. Set aside to cool.

Assemble

  1. Butter a form and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  2. Line the form with about 1 inch of cold rice.

  3. Fill the center with a ragout or forcemeat.

  4. Cover with a thick layer of rice.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes until browned.

  2. Loosen from the form with a knife.

  3. Place a dish on top.

  4. Turn it out carefully.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the bulk of the dish, with starch that thickens as it cooks in milk.
Milk
Cooks the rice into a soft, moist base and adds creaminess.
Eggs
Thicken as they heat, binding the rice into a sliceable set mixture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture.
Bread crumbs
Coat the form so the outside browns and releases more easily.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while the eggs thicken. Eggs set when heated, and if they get too hot or are not stirred they can curdle or scramble into lumps instead of forming a smooth, cohesive custard that binds the rice.

“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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