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Rice Salad

A chilled rice salad with olive oil vinaigrette, cucumber or celery, served on lettuce or cabbage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Rice Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub a bowl with a halved clove of garlic.

  2. Add 1 cup of cold boiled rice to the bowl.

Make and mix the salad

  1. In a separate bowl, mix 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of vinegar, ½ teaspoon of salt, and ½ teaspoon of paprika.

  2. Pour the dressing over the rice and mix thoroughly with a spoon and fork.

  3. Add ½ cup of cucumber cubes or celery slices and mix again.

Serve

  1. Spoon the mixture into hollowed‑out tomatoes.

  2. Serve on a bed of lettuce or shredded cabbage, dressed with the same French dressing.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Garlic + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Rice + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together734 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled rice
Forms the bulk of the salad and absorbs the dressing.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Cucumber cubes or celery slices
Adds crisp texture and freshness to the rice.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, rice, olive, vinegar, cucumber, lettuce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, rice, olive, vinegar, cucumber, lettuce. 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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