Name: Rice and Almond Cream
Ingredients: ½ cup almonds, blanched and finely chopped; 3 cups milk; ¼ cup sugar; ½ teaspoon salt; 1 cup well-washed rice; jelly, for serving; thick whipped cream, for serving

Why it works: Almond and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rice and Almond Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice cream

Combine the almonds, milk, sugar, and salt in a double boiler and heat until hot.
Add the rice and cook until tender.
Dip the mixture into frappe glasses, filling them halfway.

Serve

Top each glass with a teaspoon of jelly, then fill with thick whipped cream, and add more jelly on top.

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.

Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,456 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,130 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,800 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

Milk: Forms the creamy base that the rice cooks into and gives the dish its body.
Rice: Cooks until tender and thickens the mixture, giving it a soft, starchy texture.
Almonds: Add nutty flavour and a fine texture to the cream.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the savoury notes of the milk and almonds.
Thick whipped cream: Adds richness and a light, airy texture to the finished dessert.