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Parmese Rice

A quick shrimp and Parmesan rice dish cooked in oil or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Parmese Rice

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the sliced onion in oil or butter until soft.

  2. Add the shelled shrimp, prawns, or lobster and stir until hot.

  3. Mix in the mustard.

  4. Add the boiled rice and Parmesan cheese, stirring well.

  5. Serve immediately while hot.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Rice + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together879 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mustard + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together599 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, building the base flavour of the dish.
Shrimp
Provides the main protein and seafood flavour, cooked through by brief heating.
Boiled rice
Forms the bulk of the dish, absorbing flavour from the onion and fat.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a little richness that clings to the rice.

The step that matters

Add the boiled rice and Parmesan cheese, stirring well.. The rice must be very dry so it fries and separates rather than turning mushy. Stirring well spreads the cheese evenly and coats each grain, so the dish does not clump.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, shrimp, rice, parmesan cheese. 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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