Why it works: Ham and rice work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 477 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓
Ham and Rice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the ham
Mince the ham very fine.
Cook
In a skillet, fry the minced ham until light yellow.
Add the rice to the skillet and heat thoroughly without hardening.
Pour in boiling water to cover the rice and cook briskly for about 15 minutes.
Reduce heat and let the rice steam until fully cooked.
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.
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Ham + ricetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together477 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ham
- Fried first, it adds savoury fat and flavour that carries into the rice.
- Rice
- Absorbs the boiling water and cooking liquid, swelling into the tender grains of the dish.
The step that matters
Heating the rice without hardening it. Rice heated too long in fat before liquid is added can toast unevenly and its surface can harden, so it cooks less evenly once water goes in. Keep the heat gentle and add the water promptly.
“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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