Name: Bice and Apple Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup rice; 1-2 apples; coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); rough sugar; butter

Why it works: Rice and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,311 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Bice and Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Stew the rice according to the previous recipe.
Stew the apples as directed in recipes Nos. 121, 122.
Grease a small pie dish.

Assemble and bake

Place the stewed apples at the bottom of the dish and the stewed rice on top.
Sprinkle with rough sugar and add pieces of butter.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 10 minutes until browned.

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 + appletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,311 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 the creamy body of the pudding layer on top of the apples.
Apples: Provide moisture and tart fruit flavour beneath the rice layer as they soften.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown in the oven.
Rough sugar: Sweetens the top and caramelises to browning as it bakes.