Name: Virginia Rice Bread
Ingredients: 1 teacup of rice (about ½ cup); 1 tablespoon of lard or butter; Coarse sea salt to taste; 3 eggs; 1 pint of milk (about 2 cups); ½ pint of meal (about 1 cup)

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Virginia Rice Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the rice in water until well cooked, which will yield about 1 pint.
While the rice is warm, stir in the lard or butter and add salt to taste.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites and yolks separately.
Mix the egg yolks with the milk, then add the cooked rice.
Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.
Butter a baking dish and pour the batter in, filling it as full as possible.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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