Name: Rice Corn Bread
Ingredients: 1 cup yellow cornmeal; 1 heaping teaspoon baking powder; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon sugar; 1 cup cooked rice; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 egg, beaten

Why it works: Rice and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,645 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rice Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
Add the cooked rice and mix thoroughly.
Melt the butter and add it to the mixture along with the beaten egg.
Stir until well combined.

Bake

Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for 20 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.

Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + ricetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,744 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Yellow cornmeal: Provides the main body and corn flavor of the cornbread.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the cornbread rises and becomes lighter.
Cooked rice: Adds moisture and a softer, tender crumb to the cornbread.
Egg: Binds the batter and helps set the structure as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

“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.