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Another Risotto

A creamy risotto made with milk, rice, onions, tomatoes, pepper, salt, and grated cheese.

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

Another Risotto

Ingredients

Directions

Make the risotto

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, rice, onions, tomatoes, pepper, and salt.

  2. Boil until soft, stirring occasionally, and add more milk if necessary.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in the 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 + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 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

Raw rice
Starch that softens and thickens the liquid into a creamy, risotto-like texture.
Milk
Liquid that cooks the rice and adds richness and creaminess to the dish.
Onions
Aromatic base that adds sweetness and savory depth as they soften.
Tomatoes
Add acidity, moisture and fresh flavor that blends into the rice as it cooks.
Finely grated cheese
Adds fat, savory flavor and creaminess when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Adding milk while boiling. Rice absorbs liquid as it cooks, so it can stick or scorch if the pan dries out. Adding milk as needed keeps the starch loosening gradually for a creamy result.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rice, tomato, pepper, 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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