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Carrots and Rice

A baked casserole of rice and carrots with butter, breadcrumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Carrots and Rice

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rice and carrots

  1. Boil the rice in 4 cups of water until tender and dry.

  2. Slice the carrots.

  3. Stew the sliced carrots in 2 cups of water with 1 oz of butter until tender.

  4. Thicken the carrots with the wheat meal.

  5. Add pepper, salt, and parsley to the carrots.

Assemble and bake

  1. Form the rice into a ring on a dish and pile the carrots in the center.

  2. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the dish.

  3. Sprinkle the remaining butter cut into small pieces over the dish.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Rice + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together423 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Rice + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 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
Forms the bulk of the dish and sets as a firm base when boiled until tender and dry.
Carrots
Provide the main body, sweetness and color of the filling once stewed until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the carrots and browns the topping in the oven.
Wheat meal
Thickens the carrot stew so it holds its shape on the dish.

The step that matters

Thicken the carrots with the wheat meal. Flour needs to be stirred into the hot liquid and cooked through, or it stays floury and lumpy and fails to thicken the stew evenly.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Carrotthe original
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, parsley, wheat, 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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