Name: Beignets Au Blanc
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon rice flour; 1 cup milk; ½ cup cream; 2 tablespoons sugar; 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel; 1 tablespoon orange flower water; Oil for frying; Powdered sugar for dusting

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Beignets Au Blanc

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, mix rice flour with milk and cook slowly, stirring constantly.
Add cream, sugar, lemon peel, and orange flower water.
Once thickened, let the mixture cool.
Form the mixture into walnut-sized balls.
Dip the balls into batter and fry in hot oil until golden.
Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,366 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Rice + orangetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,067 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

Swap the orange

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Coconutfits better
Orangethe original

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