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Spanish Rice

A baked casserole of sliced mutton or lamb layered with rice, tomato sauce, and buttered crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Spanish Rice

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the cooked mutton or lamb into thin slices or cubes.

  2. In a baking dish, layer the meat and lightly sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Layer and bake

  1. Cover with a ½ inch layer of cooked rice, then add tomato sauce.

  2. Repeat layers until the dish is full.

  3. Spread buttered crumbs over the top.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 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

Cooked mutton or lamb
Provides the main protein and savory meaty flavor of the dish.
Cooked rice
Forms the bulk of each layer and absorbs juices from the meat and sauce.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity that keeps the layers from drying out as they bake.
Buttered crumbs
Forms a top layer that browns in the oven and adds a crisp texture.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, rice, sauce. 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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