Name: Rice with Parsley or Chives
Ingredients: 1 cup rice; 2 cups water; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons chopped chives

Why it works: Rice and chive work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 241 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Rice with Parsley or Chives

Ingredients

Directions

Cook rice in boiling salted water until tender.
Add butter and chives to the rice and mix gently with a fork.
Serve as a vegetable.

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 + chivetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together241 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + chivetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,097 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Forms the bulk of the dish, and its starch gives it a soft, tender body when cooked.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel, and helps coat the grains.
Chives: Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and fresh flavor.