Skip to main content
Main

Curry of Rice

A rice dish cooked with butter, onion, curry powder, salt, pepper, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Curry of Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice well.

  2. Soak the rice in fresh water for 2 hours.

  3. Drain the rice.

Make the curry rice

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Cook the onion until yellow.

  3. Add the rice.

  4. Stir over high heat for 5 minutes.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Season with curry powder, salt, and pepper.

  7. Stir well.

  8. Pour in the boiling water.

  9. Cover the stewpan.

  10. Boil rapidly for 10 minutes.

  11. Reduce heat to low.

  12. Cook for 40 minutes until ready to serve.

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. Pepper + oniontop 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

Rice
Forms the bulk of the dish, absorbing the water and butter to become tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying the curry flavour through the grains.
Curry powder
Supplies the dish's main spiced aroma and flavour.
Boiling water
Provides the liquid that the rice absorbs as it cooks.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Cover the stewpan and keep the heat low. Once the water is added and the pan is covered, the rice cooks by absorbing its liquid. Rapid boiling followed by low heat lets the grains absorb the water evenly and become tender without scorching on the bottom.

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.

More curry rice recipes

Soup 5Bake 3 See all 20 →

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes