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Kedgeree or Kidgeree, an Indian Breakfast Dish

A dish of boiled rice mixed with flaked fish, butter, cayenne pepper, salt, and beaten eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,379 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Kedgeree or Kidgeree, an Indian Breakfast Dish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the rice until tender and dry, then let it cool.

  2. Combine the cooled rice with the flaked fish in a saucepan.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the butter, cayenne, and salt, stirring constantly over medium heat until hot.

  2. Quickly mix in the beaten eggs, ensuring it does not boil.

  3. Serve immediately when the eggs are just set.

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 + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Rice + fishtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 and gives it a light, fluffy texture when cooked dry.
Fish
Adds savoury flavour and protein, providing the dish's main substance.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving a smooth mouthfeel.
Eggs
Set gently with the heat to bind the mixture and add richness and body.

The step that matters

Mix in the eggs off the boil. Eggs thicken as their proteins set with heat. If the mixture boils, the eggs can scramble or curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a creamy, bound one.

“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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