Name: Chestnut Bread
Ingredients: 1 pound finely-ground chestnuts; 2 tablespoons ground peanuts; 1 pound flaked rice; milk (enough to moisten)

Why it works: Peanut and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 670 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Chestnut Bread

Ingredients

1 pound finely-ground chestnuts
2 tablespoons ground peanuts
1 pound flaked rice
milk (enough to moisten)

Directions

Make the loaves

Combine the finely-ground chestnuts, ground peanuts, and flaked rice in a bowl.
Add enough milk to moisten the mixture and form it into loaves.
Place the loaves in the sun for 1 hour.

Serve

Cut the loaves into slices and serve with fruit or vegetables.

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.

Peanut + ricetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together670 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Chestnut + ricetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together169 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Chestnut + peanuttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together15 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Peanut + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,048 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Finely-ground chestnuts: Form the bulk of the loaves and give a dense, starchy body.
Flaked rice: Adds body and structure so the loaves hold their shape when sliced.
Ground peanuts: Add fat and a nutty flavour to the loaves.
Milk: Moistens the dry flours so they bind together into loaves.