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Rice with Curry

A simple rice dish flavored with curry powder, onion, butter, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rice with Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Lightly fry the chopped onion.

  3. Add curry powder and broth.

  4. Bring to a boil.

Cook the rice

  1. Stir in the washed rice.

  2. Let it boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt.

  4. Cover.

  5. Reduce heat and cook slowly for 20 minutes.

  6. Serve as needed.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Absorbs the seasoned broth and becomes tender, forming the body of the dish.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice flavour and colour that define the dish.
Broth
Provides the liquid the rice absorbs as it cooks.
Butter
Carries the curry flavour and helps fry the onion without sticking.
Onion
Softens and adds savoury sweetness to the base.

The step that matters

Cover and cook slowly. Once the rice is added and the lid is on, the liquid must be absorbed gently. Too much heat can scorch the bottom or leave grains firm while the liquid boils away, so keeping the heat low and the lid on lets the rice steam evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rice. 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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