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Spanish Rice

A simple rice dish cooked with tomatoes, onion, vinegar, and beef dripping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Spanish Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice well.

  2. Cover the rice with 1 inch of cold water.

Stew

  1. Add vinegar, tomatoes, onion, beef dripping, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stew for 25 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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

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

Rice
Its starch absorbs the cooking liquid and swells, giving the dish its body and texture.
Tomatoes
They add moisture, color, and a fresh, tangy flavor as they break down into the liquid.
Onion
As it softens in the stew, it adds savory aroma and a little sweetness.
Beef dripping
Its fat adds richness and carries flavor through the rice.
Vinegar
Its acidity brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the tomatoes and onion.

The step that matters

Stew for 25 minutes. The rice must absorb the liquid as it cooks. With too little liquid or heat it can stay firm or scorch, and with too much it turns soft and mushy. Keep the pot covered and check that the liquid is being absorbed.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, vinegar, tomato, beef, 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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