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Baked Rice Curry

A baked rice dish flavored with curry powder and butter.

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 ↓

Baked Rice Curry

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice in three waters and soak it in enough water to cover for 15 minutes.

  2. Boil the onion in a quart of water with salt until very soft.

  3. Strain the water, squeezing the onion in a cloth to extract all the liquid.

  4. Add the curry powder to the strained water and bring it to a boil.

  5. Pour the boiling curry water over the soaked rice.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer everything to a covered casserole dish and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the rice absorbs the liquid and is soft but not broken.

  2. Serve in a deep dish and drizzle with melted butter, gently loosening the rice with a fork.

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 + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. 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
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the curry-flavoured liquid as it bakes.
Onion
Its cooked juice adds savoury sweetness and body to the curry water.
Curry powder
Adds the spiced aroma and colour that flavour the absorbed liquid.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish to the rice when drizzled on top.

The step that matters

Baking until the rice is soft but not broken. Rice must absorb the liquid slowly inside a covered dish. Too much heat or stirring can break the grains and make them mushy, while underbaking leaves them firm at the centre.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter. 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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