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Carrots and Rice

A baked dish of rice and stewed carrots seasoned with butter, flour, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Carrots and Rice

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 the rice

  1. Boil the rice in 4 cups of water until tender and dry.

Make the carrots

  1. Slice the carrots and stew them in 2 cups of water with 2 oz of butter until tender.

  2. Thicken the carrots with the flour, then add salt, pepper, and parsley.

Assemble and bake

  1. Form the rice into a ring on a serving dish and pile the carrots in the center.

  2. Sprinkle breadcrumbs and small bits of butter over the dish.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Rice + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together423 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Rice + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 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 base ring and gives the dish its bulk and starchy body.
Carrots
Provide the main vegetable flavour and sweetness, and soften into a tender filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving a smooth mouthfeel to the carrots.
Wheat flour
Thickens the carrot cooking liquid into a light sauce that clings to the vegetables.

The step that matters

Thicken the carrots with the flour. Flour must be stirred into the carrots and cooked briefly so its starch swells and thickens the liquid evenly; adding it raw or in lumps leaves the sauce pasty or uneven.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Carrotthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, parsley, wheat, flour, 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.

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