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Spanish Rice in Casserole

A baked casserole of rice cooked in strained tomatoes and water, with pimento, onion, and grated cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Spanish Rice in Casserole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice and add it to the strained tomatoes and water.

  2. Cut the pimentos and onion into small pieces and add them along with the salt and butter.

  3. Boil all together for 5 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer to a casserole dish and bake for 1 hour.

  2. About 10 minutes before removing from the oven, sprinkle cheese over the top and brown.

  3. Serve hot.

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

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 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
Starch that absorbs the tomato liquid and water, becoming the body of the casserole.
Strained tomatoes
Provide the liquid and acidity that flavour the rice as it cooks.
Cheese
Melts and browns on the surface, adding savoury richness and colour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the rice.
Onion
Adds savoury aromatic depth as it softens in the liquid.

The step that matters

Boiling the rice in the tomato and water mixture. Rice absorbs liquid as it cooks, and the starting liquid ratio sets how moist or dry the casserole turns out. Boiling briefly before baking lets the rice begin to hydrate evenly so it cooks through in the oven.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, tomato, butter, cheese. 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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