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Macaroni and Rice

A simple cooked rice dish seasoned with salt, lemon, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,366 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Macaroni and Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Fill a large stew-pan three-quarters full with water.

  2. Bring the water to a boil.

  3. Add the salt and lemon juice to the boiling water.

  4. Rinse the rice in a sieve to clean it.

  5. Add the rice to the boiling water.

  6. Stir gently with a wooden spoon.

  7. After 10 to 12 minutes, test the rice by pinching a few grains between your fingers.

  8. When the rice is soft yet firm, pour in a jug of cold water to stop the cooking.

  9. Drain the rice completely.

Dry and finish

  1. Return the drained rice to the hot stew-pan.

  2. Shake the pan.

  3. Cover it with a clean napkin to dry the rice, shaking occasionally to separate the grains.

  4. Add the butter to detach any grains stuck to the bottom as it melts.

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 + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

  2. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Uncooked rice
Forms the body of the dish, softening as it cooks in boiling water.
Butter
Adds richness and helps loosen grains stuck to the bottom of the pan.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rice.

The step that matters

Testing the rice for doneness. Rice keeps cooking in its own heat after it leaves the boil, so it can turn mushy quickly. Testing at 10 to 12 minutes and chilling with cold water once it is soft yet firm stops the cooking at the right point.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter. 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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