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Rice with Peas

A savory rice dish cooked with peas, ham fat, onion, butter, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Rice with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Chop the onion finely.

  2. Sauté the onion in 1 tablespoon of butter until browned.

  3. Add the raw rice.

  4. Fry the rice until dry.

Cook the rice

  1. Gradually add hot water, ladle by ladle, without boiling too hard.

  2. Move the saucepan to the back of the stove.

  3. Add the remaining butter.

  4. Stir in a little grated Parmesan cheese and the prepared peas.

Finish and serve

  1. Chop the ham fat, ½ small onion, and parsley together.

  2. Sauté the mixture in olive oil, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  3. Add the peas and cover with broth or water, cooking until soft.

  4. Mix the peas with the rice.

  5. Add 1 tablespoon of Parmesan cheese.

  6. Serve.

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. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  3. Rice + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  5. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Absorbs the hot liquid as it cooks, giving the dish its creamy, starchy body.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the onion brown.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and helps create a creamy texture.
Peas
Add sweetness, colour and soft texture to the finished dish.
Olive oil
Carries the flavour of the ham fat, onion and parsley when sautéed.

The step that matters

Adding the hot water gradually. Adding hot liquid a ladle at a time lets the rice absorb it and release starch slowly, giving a creamy result. Boiling too hard can cook the outside before the centre is tender and leave the grains unevenly cooked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, parmesan cheese, ham, parsley, olive, pepper):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, parmesan cheese, ham, parsley, olive, 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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