Name: Rice Croquettes
Ingredients: plain boiled rice; flour; hot fat for frying; powdered sugar; sweet sauce

Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Rice Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Shape the plain boiled rice into pyramids, pear shapes, or any desired form.
Roll the shaped rice in flour.
Fry the rice shapes in hot fat until golden.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Serve with sweet sauce.

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.

Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,147 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,611 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,078 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Rice + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,396 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).