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Sauce

Rice Sauce

A sauce made by soaking rice in milk with onion and pepper, then simmering and straining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice base

  1. Soak the rice in the milk with the onion and pepper.

  2. Cook until the rice is tender.

  3. Remove the onion and pepper.

Finish the sauce

  1. Rub the mixture through a sieve into a saucepan.

  2. Boil the sauce, adding cream or milk if it is too thick.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down as it cooks and releases starch, giving the sauce its body and thickness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base, adding moisture and creamy richness to the sauce.
Onion
Infuses the milk during soaking, adding a mild savoury aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Pressing the cooked rice through a sieve breaks up grains and removes lumps, producing a smooth sauce texture. Skipping this leaves a grainy, uneven result.

Swap the onion

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

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

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