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Scotch Kedgeree

A savory fish and rice dish with egg whites, butter, and seasonings, topped with a hard‑boiled yolk and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Scotch Kedgeree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Skin and bone the fish, then flake the fish into a bowl.

  2. Wash the rice, boil the rice, drain the rice, and dry the rice in the oven.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the chopped whites of eggs, fish, and rice to the saucepan, then stir over heat until everything is hot, but do not brown.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Heap onto a hot dish and decorate with the hard-boiled yolk of egg and parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  5. Fish + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

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

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 dish and absorbs the butter, giving a fluffy, separate-grained texture.
Fish
Provides the main flavour and protein, and its flakes give the dish its texture.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour, and coats the rice so the grains stay separate.
Eggs
Whites add body and a light set when heated, helping bind the mixture.

The step that matters

Stirring over heat without browning. Gentle heat warms the rice, fish and egg whites through without scorching the butter or the proteins, which would turn the dish brown and dry.

“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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