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Baked Rice and Cheese

A baked casserole of rice, milk, cheese, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Baked Rice and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the cheese sauce

  1. In a saucepan, thicken the milk with flour over medium heat.

  2. Add the cheese and stir until melted.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the rice and cheese sauce.

  2. Top with breadcrumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  3. Rice + cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the casserole together.
Cheese
Melts into the sauce, adding richness and flavor.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that coats the rice.
Boiled rice
Forms the bulk of the casserole, absorbing the sauce as it bakes.

The step that matters

Thickening the milk with flour. Flour must be whisked in and cooked over medium heat so its starch swells and thickens the milk evenly. Adding it lumpy or skipping the heat leaves a thin or grainy sauce that will not bind the rice.

“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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