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Rice and Sausages for Luncheon

A baked dish of rice, sausages, and tomato topping served with optional curry brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rice and Sausages for Luncheon

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil the rice in broth until tender, then drain and dry.

  2. Cut the stem-end from the tomatoes and place them cut side up on a baking sheet.

  3. Top the tomatoes with bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

Cook and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for nearly 1 hour until browned on the edges.

  2. Broil or fry the sausages in a pan until cooked through.

  3. On a round dish, layer the rice thickly and arrange the sausages and tomatoes alternately on top.

  4. Serve with brown sauce with curry, or without sauce.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the thick base layer and absorbs the broth, giving a tender, soft bed for the toppings.
Tomatoes
Soften in the oven and add juicy moisture and mild acidity that contrast with the rich sausages.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that browns in the oven and adds texture to the tomatoes.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the bread crumbs brown and gives the topping a rich flavour.
Sausages
Provide the savoury, fatty main protein that is cooked through and served over the rice.

The step that matters

Bake the tomatoes until browned on the edges. Baking long enough lets the bread crumbs and butter brown through Maillard browning and the tomatoes soften, so the topping is golden and not pale or soggy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, tomato, bread, butter, pepper, sauce. 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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