Skip to main content
Main

Escalloped Rice and Tomatoes

A baked rice dish layered with tomatoes, cheese, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Escalloped Rice and Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil the rice until well done, then strain it through a colander.

  2. In a pot, bring the tomatoes to a boil.

Layer and bake

  1. In a buttered baking dish, layer rice, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and dots of butter, then add some tomatoes.

  2. Repeat layering until the dish is full, finishing with a top layer of rice.

  3. Sprinkle the top with grated cheese, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, bits of butter, and a dash of paprika.

  4. Bake for about 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked rice
Forms the bulk of the dish, giving it body and soaking up the tomato liquid.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that keep the rice tender and flavorful as it bakes.
Grated cheese
Melts into the topping and browns in the oven, adding richness and savoury flavour.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top when baked with butter.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the flavour and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Boil the rice until well done. Rice that is only partly cooked will stay firm during baking, because the starch needs full hydration to soften. Fully cooking it first lets the grains become tender inside the casserole.

Swap the tomato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cheese, bread, butter, 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.

You might also like

Rice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipesCheese RiceCheese Rice12 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes