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Rice Spanish

A simple rice dish cooked with tomato, green pepper, onion, lard, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rice Spanish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the lard in a large skillet over medium heat.

  2. Add the dry rice and stir until heated through but not browned.

Simmer

  1. Dissolve the salt in the boiling water and add it to the skillet.

  2. Stir in the chopped tomato, green pepper, and onion.

  3. Cook until the rice is tender, adding more boiling water if it becomes too dry.

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

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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 absorbs the cooking liquid as it softens.
Tomato
Adds moisture and a gently acidic, savoury flavour to the cooking liquid.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as it softens in the fat.
Lard
Carries flavour and helps toast the rice lightly before the liquid goes in.

The step that matters

Adding the dry rice. Stirring the rice in hot fat coats the grains so they stay separate, while overheating can scorch them. Keeping the heat moderate and stirring until heated through, not browned, avoids a bitter taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

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