Name: Almond Snow-balls
Ingredients: 1 cup rice; 2 cups water; 1 cup milk; Blanched almonds, halved; Cream sauce or plain cream; Sugar

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 ↓

Almond Snow-balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice base

Boil rice in a double boiler with water until soft.
Pour in milk and mold the mixture in cups or shape into balls.

Decorate and serve

Stick halved blanched almonds around the rice.
Serve with cream sauce or plain cream and sugar.

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).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,130 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Cooks soft and forms the bulk that holds the shape of each snowball.
Milk: Softens the cooked rice into a moist, creamy mixture that can be molded.
Blanched almonds: Add a crunchy, nutty contrast on the outside of each snowball.