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Rice Paste for Savoury Dishes

Rice paste is made from rice cooked in milk, seasoned with pepper, salt, onion, and used to coat seasoned cutlets before baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Rice Paste for Savoury Dishes

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the rice paste

  1. Cook the rice in milk until it forms a stiff paste.

  2. Season the rice with pepper, salt, and onion.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the seasoned cutlets in a pie dish and cover with the rice paste.

  2. Brush the top with beaten egg.

  3. Bake in the oven for 1-2 minutes to lightly color the paste.

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 + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 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

Rice
Cooks in milk to form a stiff paste that holds the cutlets and bakes into a firm topping.
Milk
Cooks with the rice, softening the starch so it forms a smooth, cohesive paste.
Egg
Brushed on top, it helps the paste brown and gives a glossy finish.
Onion
Adds aroma and savory flavor to the rice paste.

The step that matters

Cook the rice in milk until stiff. The rice must cook long enough for its starch to thicken the milk into a stiff paste. Undercooked rice stays grainy and will not hold its shape over the cutlets.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, rice, milk, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, rice, milk, pepper, egg. 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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