Name: French Rout Cakes
Ingredients: 1 cup ground rice; 1 cup sweet almonds, blanched; 6 lbs sugar; ½ lb bitter almonds, blanched; Whites of 16 eggs

Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

French Rout Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Sift the sweet almonds, bitter almonds, sugar, and ground rice together.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.
Fold the sifted mixture into the beaten egg whites.
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto parchment paper, about the size of walnuts, or shape them as desired.

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 + almondtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,456 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,744 recipes

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