Name: Dinner At 1.30 to 2.30
Ingredients: Roast or boiled mutton or beef; Roast or boiled fowl or game; Any kind of fish except salmon; Any kind of vegetable except potatoes; Stale brown or white bread; Coarse sea salt; Fruit; Sugar; Rice

Why it works: Potato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 851 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Dinner At 1.30 to 2.30

Ingredients

Directions

Serve roast or boiled mutton or beef warm.
Serve roast or boiled fowl or game without sauces.
Serve any kind of fish except salmon without sauces.
Serve any kind of vegetable except potatoes.
Offer a small quantity of stale brown or white bread.
Use coarse sea salt freely, avoiding all other condiments.
Stew fruit with plenty of sugar.
Add more sugar only if necessary, as it does not sweeten the fruit well.
Serve rice in small quantities.

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.

Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together851 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,668 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Fish + salmontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,078 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,488 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + ricetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, fish, salmon, bread, sugar, rice):

Asparagusfits better
Cucumberfits about as well
Tomatofits about as well
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, fish, salmon, bread, sugar, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.