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Tomato Rice

A dish of rice cooked in milk and tomato purée, seasoned with salt and pepper, finished with butter and optional grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomato Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly.

  2. Cook the rice in the milk until soft.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the tomato purée to the rice and beat until smooth.

  2. Stir in the butter.

  3. Serve hot, with or without grated cheese.

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 + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch softens and thickens the milk, giving the dish its body.
Milk
Cooks the rice and makes the result soft and creamy.
Tomato purée
Adds concentrated tomato flavour, acidity and colour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook the rice in the milk until soft. Milk contains sugars and proteins that scorch and stick to the pan if overheated. Stirring and gentle heat keep the rice cooking evenly while the starch thickens the liquid.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, pepper, butter, cheese. 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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