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Rice, Curried

A buttery curried rice dish with tomato, shallots, cream, and hard‑boiled egg, garnished with watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Pick, wash, drain, and dry the rice thoroughly.

Cook the curry rice

  1. Fry the shallots slightly in hot butter.

  2. Sprinkle in the curry powder and cook for a few minutes.

  3. Add the rice and cook, shaking well over the fire.

  4. Add the skinned and diced tomato, stock, cream, and brown sauce.

  5. Season with salt, pepper, mace, and nutmeg, and cook gently until the rice is tender.

  6. Add more stock or sauce if necessary to prevent the rice from becoming too dry.

Serve

  1. When ready, pile on a hot dish, garnish with slices of hard-boiled egg and tufts of watercress, and serve.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rice + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together284 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

Rice
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the butter, stock and sauces as it cooks tender.
Butter
Carries the shallots and curry powder, adding richness and helping the spices bloom.
Shallots
Softened in butter, they add sweetness and a mild savoury base.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spiced aroma and flavour of the dish.
Brown sauce
Adds savoury depth and colour and contributes moisture to the rice.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the liquid.

The step that matters

Keep the rice moist while it cooks. Rice keeps absorbing liquid as it simmers, so it can turn dry or stick before it is tender. Adding stock or sauce as needed keeps the grains moist and evenly cooked.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, shallot, cream, egg, sauce, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, shallot, cream, egg, sauce, 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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