Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓
Apples and Rice, Ornamented
Ingredients
Directions
Peel and core the apples, then boil them gently in light syrup for about 10 minutes.
Prepare the rice as for a cake, keeping it firmer than usual.
Bake a circular or oval pie case about 3 inches high.
Fill the baked case with rice and arrange the apples in a pyramid on top.
Mask the dish with diluted apricot jam, place a preserved cherry in each apple, and insert angelica pieces as leaves.
Serve hot, dishing up shortly before serving.
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.
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Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together777 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).
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Apricot + angelicatop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together117 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Rice + angelicatop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together54 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Apple + angelicatop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Rice + apricottop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together353 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the angelica
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, syrup, rice, apricot):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Gingerfits better
- Angelicathe original
- Clovefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, syrup, rice, apricot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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