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Turkish Pilaf

A tomato and stock rice pilaf cooked with butter, onion, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and rice 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 ↓

Turkish Pilaf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine stewed tomatoes and soup stock in a pot; season with salt, pepper, and minced onion.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Finish the pilaf

  1. Add the cooked rice and stir lightly until the liquid is absorbed.

  2. Stir in the butter.

  3. Place the pot on the back of the stove in a double boiler for 20 minutes.

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. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed tomatoes
Provide liquid and acidity that give the pilaf its tangy, moist base.
Soup stock
Supplies liquid and savory depth that the rice absorbs as it cooks.
Cooked rice
Forms the body of the dish and soaks up the seasoned liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more rounded mouthfeel.
Minced onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and savory flavor to the liquid.

The step that matters

Stir lightly after adding the rice. Vigorous stirring rubs starch off the rice grains, making the pilaf gummy. Gentle stirring lets the grains stay separate while the liquid is absorbed.

Swap the onion

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

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

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