Name: A Cheap Rice and Meat Soup
Ingredients: 1 pound rice; a little pepper; broth herbs; 2 quarts water; a little cinnamon; 2 pounds ox-cheek

Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

A Cheap Rice and Meat Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Combine rice, pepper, broth herbs, and water in a pot.
Cover and simmer gently.
Add cinnamon and ox cheek.
Boil until the flavors are well incorporated.

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.

Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,890 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Its starch thickens the broth and gives the soup body as it cooks.
Ox cheek: Slow cooking breaks down its connective tissue, making the meat tender and adding richness to the broth.