Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Cheese Rice
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Boil the rice until plain and strain it.
Assemble and bake
In a dish, mix the rice with milk, beaten eggs, grated cheese, salt, and Nepal pepper.
Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold.
Bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until nicely set.
Serve
Turn out onto a serving plate and garnish with parsley.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,163 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Rice + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together879 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,379 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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 body once set.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable custard-like texture when baked.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and softness, helping the eggs set gently rather than dry.
- Parmesan cheese
- Adds savory, salty flavor and helps the set mixture hold together with browning.
The step that matters
Bake until nicely set. Eggs set through gentle heat; too little baking leaves the mold loose and wet, while too much heat or time can make the eggs curdle and turn rubbery and dry.
“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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