Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Breakfast Dish
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
Moisten the chopped meat with gravy.
Moisten the cold boiled rice with milk and mix in the egg.
Season the rice mixture with pepper, salt, and butter.
Assemble and bake
Form a border of the rice mixture on a platter.
Place the moistened meat in the center of the rice border.
Scatter bread crumbs over the top.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Egg
- Binds the rice mixture so it holds its shape as a border.
- Cold boiled rice
- Forms the base of the casserole, giving it bulk and body.
- Milk
- Moistens the rice so it stays tender during baking.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the rice mixture.
- Cold meat
- Provides the savory filling at the center of the dish.
The step that matters
Forming the rice border. The rice mixture must be packed firmly enough to hold its shape on the platter, since the egg sets as it heats and helps bind the border around the meat.
“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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