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To Be Used Instead of Bread Sauce

A rice-based sauce that can replace traditional bread sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Be Used Instead of Bread Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. Place the rice in a pot with the milk, onion, mace, and peppercorns.

  3. Bring to a boil and cook until the rice is tender.

  4. Remove the onion, mace, and peppercorns.

  5. Rub the rice through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat.

  2. Add a tablespoon of cream for extra richness if desired.

  3. Serve.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Rice + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together932 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down during simmering and, when pushed through a sieve, thickens the milk into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice cooks in and thickens into the sauce.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, smoother mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Rub the rice through a sieve. Pushing the cooked rice through a sieve breaks it into fine particles that give the sauce its smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the sauce grainy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, onion, 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.

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