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 Bread
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
Boil the rice until soft.
While hot, mix in the butter, milk, cornmeal, flour, eggs, and salt.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.
The bread should be about 2 inches thick.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Cooked rice
- Adds body and a soft, tender crumb to the bread.
- Cornmeal
- Gives the bread its grainy texture and structure as it sets.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set into a sliceable loaf.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and softens the cornmeal so the batter bakes evenly.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, contributing tenderness and flavor.
- Flour
- Adds a little extra structure to help the bread hold together.
The step that matters
Mixing while the rice is hot. Cornmeal and flour absorb liquid as they hydrate, and warm rice helps the butter melt and the grains blend evenly. Mixing into hot rice gives a more uniform batter and a smoother, more even set in the oven.
“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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