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Jambalaya

A one-pot rice dish with sausage, ham, vegetables, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Jambalaya

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice and soak it in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Cut the sausage, ham, red pepper, onion, and tomato into small pieces.

Cook

  1. Fry the meat and vegetables in the lard until cooked.

  2. Add the water and rice to the pot, cover, and cook slowly for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot. You can substitute chicken, oysters, or shrimp for the sausage.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Absorbs the water and cooks into the body of the dish, giving it its main texture.
Sausage
Renders fat and flavor into the lard, seasoning the whole pot.
Ham
Adds savory, salty meat flavor that carries through the rice.
Onion
Softens and sweetens during frying, building the aromatic base.
Tomato
Adds moisture and mild acidity that balances the rich meats.
Lard
Fat for frying that carries flavor and helps brown the meat and vegetables.

The step that matters

Cover and cook slowly for 30 minutes. Keeping the lid on traps steam so the rice absorbs the water evenly. Cooking too fast or lifting the lid can leave rice unevenly cooked or dry.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, ham, pepper, tomato, parsley. 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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