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Baked Rice Curry

A baked rice dish flavored with curry powder, cooked in onion‑infused water and finished with melted 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.

  2. Soak the rice in enough water to cover for 15 minutes.

Make the curry water

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

  2. Strain the water.

  3. Squeeze the onion in a cloth.

  4. Discard the onion.

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

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the boiling water over the soaked rice.

  2. Transfer everything to a covered casserole dish.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the rice absorbs the liquid and is soft but not broken.

  4. Serve in a deep dish.

  5. Pour melted butter over it.

  6. Loosen the rice gently 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, softening and absorbing the curried liquid as it bakes.
Curry powder
Gives the rice its spiced aroma and yellow colour as it is stirred into the hot water.
Onion
Is boiled until very soft, adding savoury flavour to the cooking water before being discarded.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the grains and carrying flavour when poured over the served rice.

The step that matters

Bake until the liquid is absorbed but the rice is not broken. Rice grains absorb liquid as starch gelatinises during baking. Too much heat or stirring can break the grains and make them mushy, so check for tenderness without over-handling.

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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