Name: Apple Rice
Ingredients: ½ cup rice; 3 cups water; ¼ teaspoon salt; 3 medium apples; 1 tablespoon sugar; 1 piece of butter; 1 stick of cinnamon (optional)

Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the rice in water with salt for 30 minutes.
Peel, core, and cut the apples into small pieces.
Add the apples and sugar to the rice and cook until the apples are tender.
Remove from heat, add the butter, and serve with meat, eggs, fish, or cheese.
For extra flavor, boil a stick of cinnamon with the rice.

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.

Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,311 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Rice: Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs water as it cooks, giving it a soft, starchy body.
Apples: Soften as they cook, adding moisture and a fruity sweetness to the rice.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the apples.
Butter: Added at the end, it adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

“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.