Name: Black-Eyed Peas and Brown Rice
Ingredients: 4 cups cooked, cold long-grain brown rice; 1 1/4 cups water; 1 onion, chopped; 2 celery stalks, chopped; 2 garlic cloves, minced; 1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper; 3 cups frozen black-eyed peas; 1 butternut squash, about 1 lb., peeled, seeded and cut into cubes; 1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and finely chopped; 1/2 tsp. hot-pepper sauce

Why it works: Black-eyed pea and butternut squash share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

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.

Black-eyed pea + butternut squashtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Rice + black-eyed peatop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together40 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Garlic + black-eyed peatop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together105 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, onion, celery, garlic, pepper, black-eyed pea, butternut squash):

Cuminfits better
Turmericfits better
Parsleyfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, onion, celery, garlic, pepper, black-eyed pea, butternut squash. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Rice	1 cup cooked (158g) white	206
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Bell Pepper	1 medium (119g)	31
Celery Stalks	1 stalk (40g)	6
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Water	not in our table	0
Black-Eyed Pea	not in our table	0
Pumpkin	not in our table	0
Sauce	not in our table	0

Black-Eyed Peas and Brown Rice