Name: Chicken Hash on Rice Toast
Ingredients: boiled rice; melted butter; coarse sea salt; black pepper; orange or lemon juice; cooked chicken; brown or cream sauce

Why it works: Rice and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Chicken Hash on Rice Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare boiled rice the night before and set it aside with a weight on top.
The next morning, cut the rice into ½-inch thick slices.
Brush the rice slices with melted butter.
Toast the rice slices in a double broiler until golden brown.
Add bits of butter on each slice, season with salt and pepper, and squeeze a few drops of orange or lemon juice over them.
Hash the cooked chicken and heat it in brown or cream sauce.
Place the chicken on top of the toasted rice.

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 + chickentop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,769 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + orangetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,402 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,379 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Rice + orangetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,067 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, pepper, chicken, cream):

Coconutfits better
Lemonfits better
Mangofits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, pepper, chicken, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.