Name: With Rice
Ingredients: butter; boiled rice; 2 egg whites; 1 egg yolk

Why it works: Butter and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,645 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

With Rice

Ingredients

butter
boiled rice
2 egg whites
1 egg yolk

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

Butter a glass dish.
Line the dish with boiled rice.

Assemble and bake

Place the stiffly beaten egg whites on top.
Make a small indentation in the center and add the egg yolk.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the egg white is set.

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.

Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Rice + eggtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,350 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled rice: Forms the base layer that holds the egg mixture and gives the dish body.
Egg whites: Whipped stiff, they create a light, airy topping that sets in the oven.
Egg yolk: Sets into a richer, softer center that adds moisture and flavor.

The step that matters

Baking until the egg white is set. Egg whites set at around 60°C to 70°C, so underbaking leaves them runny while overbaking can make them dry and rubbery. Watching for a firm, set white rather than relying only on time helps avoid both problems.

“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.