Name: Lamb, with Wine Rice
Ingredients: 1 cup rice; handful of currants; 1 tablespoon sugar; ¼ teaspoon cinnamon; ⅓ cup white wine; 1 tablespoon butter

Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Lamb, with Wine Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Boil rice in water until soft, stirring in currants for a few minutes.
Add sugar and cinnamon, then drain any excess water.
Pour in white wine and bring to a boil.
Add butter and serve hot as an accompaniment to roast lamb.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Currant + white winetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together276 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Currant + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 bulk of the dish and softens as it boils, giving it its body.
White wine: Adds acidity and aroma, and its liquid is absorbed as the rice finishes cooking.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the wine.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, giving the finished rice a smoother mouthfeel.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, sugar, cinnamon, white wine, butter):

Vanillafits better
Applefits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, cinnamon, white wine, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.