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Buttered Rice

A simple rice dish cooked with milk, butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Buttered Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and pick the rice, then drain it.

  2. Put the rice in a pot with enough milk to just cover it.

Cook

  1. Cook over medium heat until the rice is tender.

  2. Pour off the excess milk.

Finish and serve

  1. Add butter, sugar, and cinnamon, then shake to mix.

  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. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 body of the dish as its starch softens and absorbs the milk.
Milk
Cooks the rice slowly, adding creamy richness and moisture to the grains.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor, giving the rice a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the milk and cinnamon.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the finished rice.

The step that matters

Pour off the excess milk. Milk left in the pot can make the rice soupy and dilute the butter and sugar. Draining it lets the rice hold a thick, creamy texture once the butter is mixed in.

“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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