Name: Tomato-rice with Chicken Livers
Ingredients: chicken livers; butter; boiled rice; tomato purée; strips of ham; dry grated cheese

Why it works: Chicken and rice 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 ↓

Tomato-rice with Chicken Livers

Ingredients

Directions

Scald, drain, and sauté the chicken livers in butter for a few minutes, being careful not to overcook.
Take well-dried boiled rice and mix in tomato purée by the spoonful until the rice is reddened but not sticky.
Warm the strips of ham.
Place the rice at the bottom of a dish, creating a hollow in the center for the chicken livers.
Garnish the rice with the strips of ham and serve with dry grated cheese.

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.

Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,769 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,065 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,031 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,896 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, liver, butter, rice, ham, cheese):

Onionfits about as well
Potatofits about as well
Mustardfits about as well
Tomatothe original

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