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Scalloped Rice

A baked rice dish layered with cheese and a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scalloped Rice

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 rice

  1. Steam the rice in boiling water with salt until cooked.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour.

  2. Add the milk and cream, stirring until smooth.

  3. Mix in salt and paprika.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the rice, sprinkle with cheese, then add sauce.

  2. Repeat layers of rice, cheese, and sauce.

  3. Top with buttered crumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C) until browned.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the bulk of the dish, giving it body and a soft, absorbent texture.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour while forming the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, pourable sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce, adding moisture and mild richness.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Make the sauce smooth before adding the liquid. Flour clumps if it is not fully combined with the melted butter, and adding the milk and cream too quickly can leave lumps. Stirring steadily while the liquid is added lets the starch hydrate evenly and thicken into a smooth sauce.

“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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