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Rice and Onions

Rice cooked in onion broth with butter, pepper, and salt, served with onions and a green vegetable.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rice and Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the onions

  1. Boil whole onions in water until tender.

  2. Remove the onions from the water.

Cook the rice

  1. Add washed rice, pepper, salt, and butter to the onion water.

  2. Cook until the rice is done.

Serve

  1. Serve the rice with the onions and a green vegetable.

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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Whole onions
Softened by boiling, they add mild sweetness and aroma to the cooking water and dish.
Washed rice
Its starch absorbs the cooking liquid and swells, giving the dish its soft, fluffy structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the cooked rice.

The step that matters

Cook the rice in the onion water until done. Rice absorbs its cooking liquid as it cooks, so there must be enough liquid to cook it through. If the liquid runs out early, the rice can stay firm or scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, pepper, butter. 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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