Name: Rice and Flour Muffins
Ingredients: ½ cup all-purpose flour; 1 cup boiled rice; 1½ cups milk; 3 eggs (beaten separately)

Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice and Flour Muffins

Ingredients

½ cup all-purpose flour
1 cup boiled rice
1½ cups milk
3 eggs (beaten separately)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine the flour, boiled rice, and milk.
Add the beaten eggs to the mixture.
Mix until the batter is thin, similar to pancake batter.

Bake

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Pour the batter into muffin rings or gem pans.
Bake until golden brown.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,611 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour: Provides the starch and gluten that give the muffins their structure.
Boiled rice: Adds moisture and body to the batter, giving the muffins a tender, soft crumb.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and rice and helps the batter brown in the oven.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help set the muffins as they bake.

“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.