Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Snow Balls
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rice
Pick out all imperfections from the rice.
Rinse the rice in water, rubbing it between your hands.
Drain the water and repeat the rinsing process until the water runs clear.
Cook
In a 2-quart saucepan, combine the rice, salt, and water.
Cover the saucepan and bring to a gentle boil for 1 hour, or until the water is absorbed.
Shape and serve
Dip teacups in cold water, fill them with the cooked rice, and press to shape.
Turn the rice out onto a dish and serve with butter, sugar, or wine sauce.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,147 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Forms the body of the snowballs, and its starch thickens and sets as it cooks in water.
- Water
- Hydrates the rice grains so they soften and swell during the long gentle boil.
The step that matters
Cover the saucepan and bring to a gentle boil for 1 hour, or until the water is absorbed.. A gentle boil keeps the grains intact while they absorb water and soften. A hard boil can break them apart and make the rice mushy, so the shape holds poorly when pressed.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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