Name: Boiled Rice with Pineapple
Ingredients: 1 large coffee cupful of rice; 1 lump of butter; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 pint milk or water; 1 pineapple; sugar to taste; ground cinnamon (optional)

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 ↓

Boiled Rice with Pineapple

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

Rinse the rice carefully.
Pour boiling water over the rice and let it sit for at least 5 minutes.
Drain the rice.

Cook

Place the rice in a farina kettle with butter, salt, and milk or water.
Cook the rice until done.

Add the pineapple and finish

Slice the pineapple and add it to the rice.
Sweeten the rice with sugar to taste.
Add a little ground cinnamon if desired.

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).
Butter + milktop 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).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 liquid as it cooks, becoming tender.
Milk or water: Provides the cooking liquid that the rice absorbs and softens in.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the cooked rice.
Pineapple: Adds juicy sweetness and a bright acidic flavor to the rice.

“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.