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Savoury Rice

A simple rice dish cooked with onion, cheese, tomato sauce, herbs, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Savoury Rice

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the rice in water until tender and nearly dry.

  2. Stir in the onion, cheese, tomato sauce, parsley, herbs, butter, cayenne, and salt, then mix well and form a mound on a serving dish.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 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
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives it its body as it cooks until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that coats the rice and carries flavour.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and a creamy, binding texture when stirred into the warm rice.
Tomato sauce
Adds moisture, acidity and a tangy tomato flavour to the rice.

The step that matters

Drain the rice until nearly dry. Rice cooked in too much water becomes soggy and sticky. Cooking it until tender and nearly dry keeps the grains separate so the added butter, cheese and sauce mix in evenly without turning it to mush.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, cheese, tomato, sauce, parsley, butter, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cheese, tomato, sauce, parsley, butter, pepper. 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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