Why it works: Rice and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,645 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Curried Rice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the rice thoroughly.
Mix the curry powder with the cold water.
Cook
Combine the rice, curry mixture, butter, and salt in a saucepan.
Bring to a slow boil, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.
Cover with buttered paper and cook gently without stirring until all water is absorbed, about 15 to 20 minutes.
Serve the rice once cooked.
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.
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Patna rice
- Forms the bulk of the dish, absorbing the liquid to become tender and fluffy.
- Curry powder
- Provides the main flavour and colour, dispersed through the water so it coats the grains evenly.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a rounded mouthfeel, and helps keep the grains separate.
The step that matters
Cover and cook without stirring. Once the water is absorbed, stirring releases starch from the grains and makes the rice gluey. Keeping the lid on and heat gentle lets steam cook the rice evenly without scorching the bottom.
“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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