Name: Orange Snowballs
Ingredients: 1 cup rice; 4 oranges; sifted sugar; sauce or sweet cream for serving

Why it works: Rice and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,067 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Orange Snowballs

Ingredients

1 cup rice
4 oranges
sifted sugar
sauce or sweet cream for serving

Directions

Prepare

Boil the rice for 10 minutes, then drain and let it cool.
Peel the oranges, removing the thick white skin.
Spread the rice into portions equal to the number of oranges on pudding cloths.

Cook and serve

Place each orange surrounded by rice in the cloths and tie them separately.
Boil the tied oranges for 1 hour.
Carefully turn them out onto a dish.
Sprinkle with plenty of sifted sugar and serve with sauce or sweet cream.

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.

Rice + orangetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,067 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,147 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Rice + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,396 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Forms a starchy coating that cushions each orange and holds its rounded shape while boiling.
Oranges: Provide the fruit centre and bright citrus aroma at the heart of each snowball.
Sifted sugar: Adds sweetness on top and a light, fine finish to the outside.