Name: Cheese-cakes
Ingredients: Pastry dough; Curd or cheese; Rice; Potatoes; Butter

Why it works: Rice and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 851 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Cheese-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Roll out the pastry to ¼ to ½ inch thick.
Line the pans with the pastry, leaving the middle slightly thinner.
Fill the shells with curd, rice, potatoes, and other mixtures.
Bake until golden brown.

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 + potatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together851 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cheese + ricetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together942 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cheese + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together959 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).