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
Fry the minced ham in a pan until light yellow.
Add the washed rice to the pan 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
- Adds savory flavor and fat as it fries, seasoning the rice as it cooks.
- Rice
- Forms the bulk of the dish; its starch absorbs water and softens into a tender, fluffy texture.
The step that matters
Heating the rice before adding water. Heating the washed rice in the pan with the ham until it is thoroughly hot, without letting it harden, helps the grains stay separate and absorb water evenly. Adding boiling water to cover then cooks the starch evenly.
“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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