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Turkish Pilaf

A simple rice dish cooked with stock, tomatoes, and butter.

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 ↓

Turkish Pilaf

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a double boiler, combine the rice, stock, and tomatoes.

  2. Cook until the rice is tender, removing the cover if there is too much liquid.

  3. Add the butter and stir gently with a fork to avoid breaking the rice.

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. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the pilaf as its starch softens and absorbs the cooking liquid.
Stock or broth
Supplies the cooking liquid that the rice absorbs as it becomes tender.
Tomatoes
Add acidity, moisture and color to the liquid, flavoring the rice as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, coating the grains for a smoother, more flavorful finish.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter gently with a fork. Vigorous stirring rubs the starch off the rice and breaks the grains, leaving the pilaf mushy. Gentle folding keeps the grains whole and separate.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe 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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