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Tomato Rice

A skillet-cooked rice dish flavored with tomato juice and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato 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 ↓

Tomato Rice

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a skillet, heat the lard over medium heat.

  2. Add the sliced onion and fry for 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Add the raw rice and stir for another minute.

  4. Pour in the hot water and hot tomato juice.

  5. Boil slowly until the rice is fully cooked.

  6. Serve warm.

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

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raw rice
Provides the starch that absorbs the liquid and softens into the body of the dish.
Lard
Fat that carries the heat and helps fry the onion and rice.
Tomato juice
Adds acidity and tomato flavour while contributing liquid for cooking the rice.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness as it fries in the fat.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until the rice is fully cooked. Too fast a boil can scorch the bottom and leave the liquid evaporated before the grains hydrate. Gentle heat lets the rice absorb the liquid evenly and cook through.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, tomato. 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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