Name: Beignets of Rice Au Conserve
Ingredients: ½ cup preserved ginger in syrup; 1 cup milk; 2 tablespoons sugar; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 cup all-purpose flour; 6 large eggs; clarified butter for greasing

Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beignets of Rice Au Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

In a two-quart saucepan, combine milk, sugar, and butter. Bring to a boil.
Sift the flour. Crack the eggs, checking for freshness.
Once the milk boils, stir in the sifted flour quickly and continue stirring for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat and add eggs two at a time, stirring well after each addition.
Let the mixture cool.
Prepare the ginger by washing it in hot water and slicing it thinly.
Stir the ginger into the cooled mixture.
Grease a quart-sized pudding mold with clarified butter.
Cut a piece of paper to fit the bottom of the mold, grease it, and place it inside.
Pour the mixture into the mold and cover with buttered paper.
Place the mold in a saucepan with water halfway up the sides.
Bring to a boil and cook for 45 minutes.

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.

Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, milk, sugar, butter, flour, egg):

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Jalapenofits about as well
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, milk, sugar, butter, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.