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Savoury Rice

A simple rice dish flavored with butter, French tomato sauce, and grated Parmesan cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Savoury Rice

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the boiled rice and butter.

  2. Add the French tomato sauce and grated Parmesan cheese.

  3. Mix well and stir over heat until hot.

  4. Serve piled on a 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 + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,490 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Rice + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together879 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled rice
Forms the bulk of the dish and carries the sauce and cheese.
Butter
Adds richness and helps coat the rice so it stays moist when reheated.
French tomato sauce
Provides moisture, acidity and savory flavor throughout the rice.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savory flavor and melts slightly into the hot rice.

The step that matters

Stir over heat until hot. Heating gently while stirring warms the rice evenly and distributes the butter, sauce and cheese without scorching. Too little heat leaves cold spots, while too much can dry the rice or make the cheese clump.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Tomatothe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatofits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, sauce, parmesan cheese. 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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