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Buttered Rice

A simple dish of boiled rice sautéed with butter, onion, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Buttered Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Add the rice to boiling water with a pinch of salt.

  2. Boil for 20 minutes until softened but not broken.

  3. Drain the rice in a colander.

Dry and butter the rice

  1. Let the rice dry in the oven.

  2. Heat the butter in a frying pan.

  3. Add the grated onion and stir until it sizzles.

  4. Add the dried rice to the hot butter and toss lightly.

Season and serve

  1. Season with pepper and salt.

  2. Serve in a deep dish.

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

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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 softens and sets into separate, tender grains when boiled.
Butter
Fat that coats the grains, adding richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Grated onion
Releases aromatic compounds as it sizzles in the hot butter, flavouring the rice.

The step that matters

Drying the rice before it meets the butter. Surface water stops butter from coating the grains evenly and makes the rice steam and clump in the pan. Drying the grains lets the fat cling and fry them lightly, keeping each grain separate and distinct.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, 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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