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 ↓
A Nice Breakfast Dish
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
Season the chopped cold meat and wet it with gravy if convenient, then place it on a platter.
Moisten the cold rice with milk and mix in the egg, seasoning with pepper and salt.
If the rice is insufficient, add powdered bread crumbs.
Assemble and bake
Spread the rice mixture thickly around the platter.
Set the platter in a 400°F (200°C) oven to heat and brown.
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.
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,379 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Rice + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,259 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,481 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
- Cold rice
- Forms the bulk of the topping, and milk softens it so it spreads and stays moist.
- Egg
- Binds the rice mixture so it holds together while heating and browning.
- Chopped cold meat
- Forms the base of the dish, seasoned and moistened before it is covered.
- Powdered bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture and add body to the rice mixture when more substance is needed.
The step that matters
Spreading the rice mixture thickly around the platter. A thick layer of moist rice is needed to seal the meat and brown well in the oven. A thin layer can dry out or let the meat underneath overheat before the top browns.
“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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