Skip to main content
Main

Fried Rice

A dish of boiled rice seasoned with pepper, salt, and butter, sliced and fried until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rice and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,379 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fried Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the boiled rice with pepper, salt, and butter.

  2. Spread the rice in a shallow dish and let it cool until stiff.

  3. Cut the rice into 2-inch thick slices.

Fry

  1. Fry the slices in butter until they are nicely 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 + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  2. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled rice
Its starch firms as it cools, so the rice holds its shape when sliced and fried.
Butter
Fat that conducts heat to brown the slices and adds richness and flavor.

The step that matters

Let the rice cool until stiff. As cooked rice cools, its starch sets and firms. If the rice is still soft, the slices will crumble or fall apart in the pan.

“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.

More fried rice recipes

Chicken 5Balls 5Vegetable 4Egg 3Cakes 3Spanish 3 See all 20 →

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes