Name: Apples with Rice
Ingredients: 1 cup rice; 2 cups water or milk; 2 tablespoons butter; 6 apples, peeled, quartered, and cored; ¼ cup sugar; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; cream for serving

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 ↓

Apples with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

Rub the kettle with butter before adding the rice.
Boil rice in water or milk in a frying kettle.
Season with salt and add a lump of butter.

Add the apples and serve

When cooked, add the apples, sugar, and cinnamon.
Serve as a side dish or dessert with cream.

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).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Forms the starchy base that cooks into a soft, tender body.
Apples: Add moisture, fruity flavor, and a soft texture as they cook.
Butter: Adds richness and a rounded flavor to the rice.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the apples soften and take on color.
Cinnamon: Contributes warm, aromatic spice that complements the apples.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, cream):

Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Figfits about as well
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, sugar, cinnamon, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.