Name: Brandied Rice
Ingredients: 1 glass of preserved pineapple; 1 pint of milk; ½ glass of brandy; sugar to taste

Why it works: Pineapple and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 298 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Brandied Rice

Ingredients

1 glass of preserved pineapple
1 pint of milk
½ glass of brandy
sugar to taste

Directions

Prepare

Boil the rice in milk until cooked.
Sweeten the rice and let it cool.

Serve

When ready to serve, mix the brandy with the preserved pineapple.
Pour the pineapple mixture over the rice.

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.

Pineapple + brandytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together298 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Pineapple + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together885 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,738 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 (in the method): Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the milk as it cooks into a soft, creamy base.
Milk: Cooks with the rice to give it a soft, moist, creamy texture.
Preserved pineapple: Adds fruity sweetness and acidity that cut through the richness of the milk and rice.
Brandy: Adds a warm, aromatic alcohol flavour to the pineapple mixture.