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Savory Rice a LA Milanabe

A baked rice dish with veal, ham, eggs, cheese, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Savory Rice a LA Milanabe

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. Wash the rice well.

  2. Strain the broth through a thin cloth and add boiling water and salt.

  3. Add the rice and cook slowly until it absorbs all the water and is soft.

Make the custard mixture

  1. Mix hot milk with eggs, cheese, and butter in a bowl.

  2. Stir in the minced veal and ham.

Bake and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a greased mold.

  2. Cover and bake in a water bath at 400°F (200°C) for 1½ hours.

  3. Dip the mold in cold water and invert onto a flat dish.

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

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

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

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  5. Rice + cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and bind the rice and meat into a firm, sliceable mass.
Rice
Forms the body of the bake, absorbing the broth and giving a soft, tender texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the custard stay soft and creamy as it sets.
Cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps bind the mixture.
Veal
Contributes savory meat flavor and substance to the bake.
Ham
Adds salty, savory meat flavor throughout the bake.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath. Eggs set into a smooth custard only when heated gently. Baking in a water bath moderates the oven heat around the mold, so the eggs cook evenly without curdling or becoming rubbery.

“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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