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Kedgeree

A fish and rice dish cooked with butter, salt, pepper, cayenne, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,379 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Kedgeree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick the flesh of the fish from the bones and break it into flakes, removing skin and bones.

  2. Break up the rice with a fork until it is free from skin.

  3. Combine equal quantities of fish and rice.

Cook

  1. Melt butter in a frying pan.

  2. Add the fish and rice.

  3. Stir until hot.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste.

  5. Stir in the well-beaten eggs just before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve hot on a silver dish if available.

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

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

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Fish + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set when stirred into the hot mixture, binding the fish and rice and adding richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the rice and fish.
Rice
Provides the bulk and body of the dish, soaking up the butter and seasoning.
Fish
Supplies the main flavour and flaked texture of the dish.

The step that matters

Stir in the well-beaten eggs just before serving. Eggs set when heated, so adding them at the end and stirring only until just cooked keeps them creamy rather than scrambled or dry.

“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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