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Another Risotto

A creamy risotto made with milk, rice, onions, tomatoes, pepper, salt, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Another Risotto

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk, rice, onions, tomatoes, pepper, and salt.

  2. Boil until soft, stirring occasionally, and add more milk if necessary.

  3. Just before serving, stir in the grated cheese.

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

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Starch that absorbs the milk and tomato liquid, giving the dish its creamy, soft body.
Milk
Liquid that cooks the rice and gives a creamy, rich texture as it reduces.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture, acidity and a fresh tomato flavour that carries through the dish.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften during boiling.
Grated cheese
Melts into the hot rice at the end, adding richness and savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Boil until soft, adding milk as needed. Rice absorbs liquid as it cooks, so it can scorch or stay firm if the pan dries out. Stirring and topping up with milk keeps the texture creamy and evenly cooked.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rice, tomato, pepper, cheese. 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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