Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Rice Bbead
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.
Prepare the batter
Boil the rice in water until soft.
In a bowl, mix the butter, milk, cornmeal, flour, eggs, and salt.
Add the cooked rice to the mixture and stir well.
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour until set and golden.
The bread should be about 2 inches thick.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Rice
- Cooked rice adds soft body and moisture to the crumb.
- Eggs
- Eggs bind the batter and help it set firm as it bakes.
- Cornmeal
- Cornmeal gives the bread its grainy texture and structure.
- Milk
- Milk adds moisture and contributes to browning on the crust.
- Butter
- Butter adds richness and fat, tenderising the crumb.
- Flour
- Flour adds structure, helping the batter hold together when baked.
The step that matters
Bake until set and golden. Eggs set as they heat, so the bread must bake long enough for the centre to firm up. Stopping early leaves it wet and loose, while the golden colour comes from browning of milk sugars and proteins at the surface.
“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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