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Savoury Rice

A baked rice casserole with butter, eggs, milk, parsley, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Savoury Rice

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Boil the rice in water until tender and the water is absorbed.

  2. Transfer the rice to a buttered pie dish.

  3. Mix in the parsley and butter.

  4. Season with pepper and salt.

Make the custard and bake

  1. Beat the eggs.

  2. Stir the beaten eggs into the milk.

  3. Pour the egg mixture into the pie dish.

  4. Bake until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Parsley + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 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 casserole and provides its body once tender.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the rice into a sliceable, custard-like casserole.
Milk
Combines with the eggs to form a custard that keeps the casserole moist.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and softening the rice.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Eggs set as they heat, so the casserole must be baked long enough to firm up. Underbaking leaves it loose and wet in the centre, while overbaking can make the custard dry and rubbery.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk, pepper, rice. 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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