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Rice Cheese

A baked casserole of rice, cheese, butter, flour, and milk, seasoned with salt, cayenne, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Rice Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the sauce

  1. Boil the rice in water until tender.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  3. Add the flour to the melted butter and mix well.

  4. Pour in the milk and stir until the sauce boils.

  5. Add the cooked rice and season with salt, cayenne, and black pepper.

  6. Stir in 3 oz. of the grated cheese.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish.

  2. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Rice + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together599 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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 casserole and absorbs the sauce, giving it body.
Grated cheese
Melts into the sauce for richness and forms a browned crust on top.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce, giving it creaminess and body.

The step that matters

Stir the flour into the butter and cook until the sauce boils. Flour must be fully mixed into the melted butter before the milk goes in, otherwise lumps form. Stirring the milk until it boils lets the starch swell and thicken the sauce evenly.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, cheese, butter, flour, milk, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cheese, butter, flour, milk, 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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