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Ham and Rice

A baked casserole of rice, ham, eggs, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ham and Rice

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Boil the rice until tender.

  2. Mix the hot rice with the chopped ham and butter.

Make the egg mixture

  1. Beat the eggs and mix with the milk.

  2. Cook the egg and milk mixture over boiling water until slightly thickened.

Serve

  1. Pour the egg mixture over the rice and serve immediately.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and thicken the milk mixture into a creamy, custard-like binder for the rice.
Rice
Forms the bulk and base of the casserole, absorbing the custard as it is poured over.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving a soft, creamy texture when gently heated.
Boiled ham
Adds savoury flavour and salt-cured taste that carries through the rice and custard.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the rice a smoother mouthfeel and rounder flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the egg and milk mixture over boiling water until slightly thickened. Eggs thicken when heated, but too much heat makes them curdle and turn grainy. Gentle, indirect heat over boiling water lets the custard set smoothly and evenly, so it binds the rice without going lumpy.

“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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