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Breakfast

A Nice Breakfast Dish

A baked breakfast casserole of cold meat, rice, milk, egg, pepper, salt, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

A Nice Breakfast Dish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Season the chopped cold meat.

  2. Wet the seasoned meat with gravy if convenient.

  3. Place the meat on a platter.

Make the rice mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine cold rice, milk, egg, pepper, and salt. Mix well.

  2. If the rice is insufficient, add powdered bread-crumbs until thick.

Bake

  1. Spread the rice mixture around the platter with the meat.

  2. Heat in a 400°F (200°C) oven until warmed through and browned.

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

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

  2. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  4. Rice + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,481 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

Cold rice
Forms the bulk of the casserole and absorbs milk and egg as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the rice mixture and helps it set firm as it heats.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness so the rice mixture stays tender rather than dry.
Chopped cold meat
Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the dish.
Powdered bread-crumbs
Thickens the rice mixture and helps it hold together when added.

The step that matters

Spread the rice mixture around the platter with the meat. The rice mixture should be thick enough to hold its shape. If it is too thin, the egg and milk stay loose and the casserole will not set when baked.

“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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