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Rice Sauce

A creamy sauce made with milk, onion, pepper, rice, cream, butter, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk with the onion and black pepper until boiling.

  2. Add the rice, which should be well picked and washed.

  3. Let it simmer until the rice is tender.

  4. Remove the onion and pepper, then rub the mixture through a sieve.

  5. Stir in the cream, butter, salt, and nutmeg until well combined.

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

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Thickens the milk as its starch softens during simmering, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel in the finished sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sauce's texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice cooks in and thickens.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a sieve. Pressing the cooked rice and flavourings through a sieve breaks down the softened grains and removes solids, which gives the sauce a smooth texture instead of a grainy one.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, pepper, rice, cream, butter, nutmeg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, rice, cream, butter, nutmeg. 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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