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Kedgeree for Breakfast

A breakfast dish of rice, fish, egg, butter, pepper, salt, mace, optionally Parmesan or curry powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 for Breakfast

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the rice until tender.

  2. Add the picked cooked fish to the rice.

  3. Stir in the chopped hard-boiled egg just before serving.

  4. Add butter, pepper, coarse sea salt, and a touch of mace.

  5. For variation, sprinkle with grated Parmesan or curry powder.

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. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the butter and seasoning as it cooks.
Cooked fish
Provides the main protein and flavour, flaked through the rice.
Hard-boiled egg
Adds richness and a soft, creamy texture against the rice.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the rice grains for a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir in the chopped hard-boiled egg just before serving. Egg that is stirred in too early and mixed vigorously can break down and turn the dish grey-tinged and mushy. Folding it in gently at the end keeps the pieces intact and the yolk looking fresh.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, fish, egg, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, fish, egg, butter, pepper. 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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