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Kedgeree

A simple rice dish with smoked fish, boiled eggs, butter, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Kedgeree

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Boil the rice in salted water until tender, then drain.

Assemble and serve

  1. Flake the smoked fish and chop the hard-boiled eggs.

  2. In a pan, melt the butter and add the rice, fish, and eggs. Stir gently to combine and heat through.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then garnish with parsley before serving.

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 + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  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

Rice
Forms the bulk of the dish and provides its main body when cooked until tender.
Smoked fish
Supplies the main flavour and flaky texture of the dish.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, firm texture that blends with the rice and fish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the rice, fish and eggs taste rounded when warmed together.

The step that matters

Heating the rice, fish and eggs together. Stirring gently while the mixture heats through keeps the flaked fish and cooked eggs intact and warm without breaking them into a mush, and the rice should be drained well first so the dish does not turn wet.

“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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