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Rice in Shapes with Currie

A baked rice dish shaped with currie, lined with bacon, and filled with meat curry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,366 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Rice in Shapes with Currie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash and boil the rice until half done, then drain it.

  2. Add currie powder, butter, bay leaf, veal broth, salt, and lemon juice to the rice.

  3. Cook over low heat until nearly tender, then let it cool and mix in the egg yolks.

Build the mold

  1. Line a tin mold with strips of fat bacon.

  2. Press the rice mixture around the inside and bottom of the mold.

  3. Fill with cooked chicken or meat curry, using only a little of the liquid.

  4. Cover with the remaining rice and bake at 350°F (175°C) until heated through.

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 + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the shaped crust that holds the filling and gives the dish its body.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, giving the rice a soft, silky texture.
Veal broth
Supplies moisture so the rice cooks tender rather than dry.
Egg yolks
Bind the cooled rice together so it holds its shape when turned out.
Currie powder
Provides the aroma and spiced flavor that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Mixing in the egg yolks after cooling. Eggs thicken when heated, so adding yolks to hot rice can scramble them. Letting the rice cool first lets the yolks bind it smoothly and hold its shape.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Peachfits less well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, veal, egg. 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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