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A Turkish Pilau

A Turkish pilau is a rice dish cooked with tomatoes, seasoned stock, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

A Turkish Pilau

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pilaf

  1. In a saucepan, combine the stewed strained tomatoes and seasoned stock. Bring to a boil.

  2. Add the washed rice and stir lightly with a fork until the liquid is absorbed.

  3. Stir in the butter and steam in a double boiler for 20 minutes.

  4. Remove the cover and place a folded napkin over the top of the boiler to allow steam to escape.

Serve

  1. Serve as a vegetable alongside cold cooked meat or poultry.

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. Onion + ricetop 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

Washed rice
Forms the bulk of the pilaf and absorbs the tomato stock as it steams.
Stewed strained tomatoes
Supplies the liquid and tomato acidity that flavour the rice as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the grains and carrying flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring in the rice until the liquid is absorbed. Stirring lightly with a fork, rather than vigorously, keeps the grains from breaking and releasing starch, which would make the pilaf gummy. Letting the liquid absorb fully before steaming gives the rice an even base.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, 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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