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Rice Timbales

Rice timbales are rice cakes filled with fish or seafood ragout.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rice Timbales

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Boil the rice in white fish stock until cooked.

  2. Drain and let some moisture evaporate.

  3. Add butter, Parmesan, salt, pepper, and nutmeg to the rice, then mix well.

  4. Press the mixture into a buttered tin about 3 inches deep.

  5. Let it cool until firm.

Shape and fry

  1. Cut into rounds with a pastry cutter dipped in warm water.

  2. Mark the centers with a smaller cutter.

  3. Dip the rounds in beaten egg and breadcrumbs.

  4. Fry in boiling butter until golden.

  5. Remove the inner circles.

  6. Scoop out some rice to create a hollow space.

Fill and serve

  1. Fill the hollow with a ragout of fish, lobster, or shrimp.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 firm body of the timbale and absorbs the stock as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the outside brown evenly when the rounds are fried.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury depth and helps bind the rice as it cools and firms.
Eggs (in the method)
Forms a coating that sets on frying, helping the outside crisp and hold its shape.

The step that matters

Let the rice cool until firm before cutting. Rice must set fully so the rounds hold their shape; cutting or frying it while warm causes it to crumble and fall apart.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Basilfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

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