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Scalloped Rice

Scalloped rice is a baked dish of layered rice, butter, crumbs, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Scalloped Rice

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter an earthen baking dish.

Layer

  1. Layer boiled rice in the bottom of the dish, then sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Add bits of butter on top of the rice.

  3. Sprinkle a layer of cracker crumbs over the rice and season again.

  4. Repeat layering rice and crumbs until the dish is two-thirds full, finishing with cracker crumbs.

  5. Add chopped onion or parsley between layers if desired.

Bake

  1. Pour broth, milk, or hot water over the layers just before baking.

  2. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Rice + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled rice
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the liquid as it bakes.
Cracker crumbs
Add a toasted, crisp topping and help soak up moisture between rice layers.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top and crumbs brown in the oven.
Broth, milk, or hot water
Supplies the moisture that softens the rice and crumbs during baking.

The step that matters

Pour the liquid just before baking. Adding liquid early lets the crumbs and rice soak it up unevenly before heat sets the dish, leaving it soggy or dry in patches.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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