Why it works: Rice and saffron work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 629 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓
Pilau
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Rinse the rice under cold water until the water runs clear.
In a pot, bring the stock to a boil.
Cook
Add the rice and saffron (or curry powder) to the boiling stock.
Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15-20 minutes until rice is tender.
Fluff the rice with a fork and season with salt to taste.
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.
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Rice + saffrontop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together629 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Starch that absorbs the stock and swells to form the body of the dish.
- Stock
- Liquid that hydrates the rice and carries flavour into every grain as it cooks.
- Saffron
- Adds a golden colour and a distinctive floral aroma to the rice.
The step that matters
Simmer covered on low heat. Keeping the lid on and the heat low holds steam in, so the rice cooks evenly in the measured liquid. Lifting the lid or boiling hard lets steam escape and can leave grains unevenly cooked or scorched.
“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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