Name: Date Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup boiled rice; 1 cup seeded dates; 1 cup sugar; a little water; whipped cream for serving

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Date Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the seeded dates with sugar and a little water until soft.
Thoroughly mix the boiled rice and the stewed dates together.
Serve the mixture with whipped cream.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together985 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Rice + datestop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together44 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,399 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled rice: Forms the body of the pudding, giving it a soft, starchy bulk.
Seeded dates: Provide the main sweetness and flavour, softening into a moist, sticky texture when stewed.
Sugar: Sweetens the stewed dates and helps them break down into a smooth, thick mixture.