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Rice Saute

Rice saute is a dish of cooked rice fried with butter and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rice Saute

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 the rice

  1. Boil the rice as in previous recipes.

  2. Turn the cooked rice onto a hot platter and place it in a 400°F (200°C) oven to dry for 5 minutes, loosening the grains with a fork.

  3. Set the dry rice aside to cool completely.

Fry and serve

  1. In a frying pan, heat the butter and fry the onion slices until they begin to color.

  2. Remove the onions and add the rice to the butter, one tablespoon at a time, to keep the grains separate.

  3. Toss the rice lightly with a fork to keep the grains distinct, and as they color slightly, lift them with a perforated spoon into a heated colander.

  4. Keep the colander in an open oven until all the rice is cooked, shaking gently to ensure it is free from grease.

  5. Transfer the rice to a deep, uncovered 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. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the bulk of the dish; drying and frying separate the grains so they stay distinct.
Butter
Fat that carries the frying, adding richness and helping the rice take on light browning.
Onion
Fried until it begins to color, adding sweetness and savory aroma to the rice.

The step that matters

Adding the rice to the butter. Adding the rice a tablespoon at a time and tossing it lightly keeps the grains from clumping together and absorbing too much fat. Cooled, dried grains fry more evenly and stay separate.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter. 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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