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Escalloped Rice and Tomatoes

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

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.

  2. Strain the rice through a colander.

  3. Bring the tomatoes to a boil.

Layer and bake

  1. In a buttered baking dish, layer rice.

  2. Sprinkle the rice with salt, pepper, and dots of butter.

  3. Add some tomatoes.

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

  5. Top with grated cheese, bread crumbs, additional butter, salt, pepper, and paprika.

  6. 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

Rice
Forms the bulk of the dish, giving body and a soft, absorbent texture.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that soak into the rice between layers.
Grated cheese
Melts into the top layer and browns in the oven for richness and flavor.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft layers below.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top layer brown.

The step that matters

Strain the rice well. Rice that is excessively wet from boiling will make the dish soggy, since surplus water dilutes the tomatoes and stops the topping from crisping in the oven.

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.

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