Name: Timbals of Rice
Ingredients: 3 pounds of rice; Clarified butter for greasing; Truffles, beef tongue, or bread crumbs for decoration (optional); Meats or purees for filling

Why it works: Butter and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,209 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Timbals of Rice

Ingredients

3 pounds of rice
Clarified butter for greasing
Truffles, beef tongue, or bread crumbs for decoration (optional)
Meats or purees for filling

Directions

Cook the rice until firm, as described in previous recipes.
Butter the timbal or charlotte molds with clarified butter and place them in a cool area to harden.
Once the rice is cool and the molds are ready, line the molds with the rice, pressing it tightly against the sides and bottom.
Fill the centers of the molds with your choice of meats or purees.
Cover the filling with a layer of rice, smoothing it evenly, and place a buttered paper cover on top.
Set the molds in the oven to keep warm until ready to serve.
To serve, run a knife between the mold and the timbal to loosen it, then turn it out onto a serving dish.

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 + truffletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Truffle + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together527 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Rice + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).