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Buttered Bice

A simple dish of rice cooked in milk, then finished with butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Buttered Bice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and pick the rice, then drain it.

Cook

  1. Put the rice in a pot with enough new milk to just swell it over medium heat.

  2. Cook until tender, then pour off the milk.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the butter, sugar, and pounded cinnamon to the rice.

  2. Shake the pot gently to prevent burning, then serve.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Rice
Forms the body of the dish as it swells and softens in the milk.
New milk
Cooks into the rice, providing moisture and a soft, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the rice a smooth mouthfeel and flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavour of the milk and cinnamon.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm aroma and flavour to the rice.

The step that matters

Shake the pot gently to prevent burning. Once the milk is poured off, little liquid remains, so the rice can scorch on the base of the pot. Gentle shaking redistributes the rice and helps prevent sticking and burning.

“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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