Skip to main content
Main

Rice Sauce

A sauce made by stewing rice with onion, salt, peppercorns, then finishing with cream, milk, or melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rice and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rice Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash and pick the rice.

Make the sauce

  1. Stew the rice in milk with the onion, salt, and peppercorns until tender.

  2. Remove the onion and peppercorns.

  3. Rub the rice through a colander.

  4. Heat the rice in cream, milk, or melted butter.

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 + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  2. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Thickens the sauce as it softens and is rubbed through, giving body and a smooth texture.
Milk
Cooks the rice to tenderness and adds moisture and richness to the sauce.
Cream, milk, or melted butter
Enriches the final sauce with fat for a silkier mouthfeel and mellow flavour.

The step that matters

Rubbing the rice through a colander. The rice must be cooked fully tender before it is pressed, so it breaks down into a smooth purée rather than a grainy texture. Under-cooked grains will not pass cleanly and leave the sauce gritty.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cream. 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.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes