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Rice Casserole

A baked rice casserole seasoned with salt, cayenne, and topped with butter, then filled with sautéed sweetbreads or chicken livers and glazed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and chicken match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,148 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Rice Casserole

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the rice paste

  1. Wash and boil rice in beef bouillon, using twice the weight of rice in liquid.

  2. When done and moisture evaporated, season with salt and Cayenne pepper.

  3. Remove from heat and pound to a paste in a mortar.

Bake and fill

  1. Grease a casserole dish and line it with the rice paste, smoothing the top.

  2. Sprinkle with butter and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes until crusty and light brown.

  3. Remove from oven and let stand for a few minutes.

  4. Fill the cavity with sautéed sweetbreads, chicken livers, or any small meat entree.

Unmold and serve

  1. Unmold upside down on a platter and paint the surface with meat glaze.

  2. Return to a hot oven for a few minutes and serve.

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. Beef + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Rice + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Rice
Forms the paste base that sets into a firm, crusty shell when baked.
Beef bouillon
Cooks the rice and adds savoury beef flavour to the paste.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the top brown and crisp in the oven.
Meat glaze
Adds concentrated meaty flavour and a glossy, browned finish to the surface.

The step that matters

Pounding the rice to a paste. Rice must be pounded while still hot and fully cooked so the starch binds into a smooth, cohesive mass. If it is cool or undercooked, the paste crumbles and will not hold its shape when unmolded.

“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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