Name: Lunch Dish
Ingredients: 1 cup rice; ½ can deviled ham; 1 tablespoon butter; grated cheese (to taste)

Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lunch Dish

Ingredients

1 cup rice
½ can deviled ham
1 tablespoon butter
grated cheese (to taste)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Boil the rice until soft.
Mix the cooked rice with the deviled ham and butter.
Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish.

Bake and serve

Sprinkle grated cheese on top.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 minutes.

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 + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Rice + cheesetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together942 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ham + cheesetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together303 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Forms the bulk of the casserole and absorbs the butter and ham flavour as it sets.
Deviled ham: Adds savoury, salty flavour and moisture throughout the rice.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the mixture feel moist.
Grated cheese: Melts over the top during baking and adds browning and savoury flavour.

“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.