Name: Rice, Cheese, Nut Roast
Ingredients: 1 cup grated or ground cheese; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 lemon (juice); 1 cup ground nuts; 2 tablespoons minced onions; 1 cup dry bread crumbs; ½ cup milk or water

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rice, Cheese, Nut Roast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

Melt the butter in a pan and fry the onions until yellow.
Add ½ cup water and let it simmer for five minutes.
Mix all ingredients together with the milk or water.

Bake and serve

Bake in a deep square bread pan or like a beef loaf.
Serve with brown or tomato sauce, if 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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground nuts: Provides the main body and substance of the loaf.
Cheese: Adds richness and fat, helping bind the loaf and give it savoury flavour.
Dry bread crumbs: Absorb liquid and help the mixture hold together in a loaf shape.
Milk or water: Adds moisture so the dry ingredients bind and the loaf stays tender.
Butter: Adds fat and flavour when used to fry the onions.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, nuts, onion, bread, milk):

Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Vanillafits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, nuts, onion, bread, milk. 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.