Name: Cabbages with Rice and Gravy
Ingredients: 1 head of cabbage; ½ cup rice; gravy (enough to cover); grated cheese (for serving)

Why it works: Cabbage and rice work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 361 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cabbages with Rice and Gravy

Ingredients

1 head of cabbage
½ cup rice
gravy (enough to cover)
grated cheese (for serving)

Directions

Prepare

Parboil the cabbage and cut it into pieces the size of an egg.

Cook

Combine the cabbage pieces with an equal quantity of half-boiled rice in a pot.
Add enough gravy to cover the mixture and simmer until done.

Serve

Serve with grated cheese on the side.

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.

Cabbage + ricetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together361 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Rice + cheesetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together942 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cabbage + cheesetop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together90 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage: Forms the bulk of the dish and adds moisture and mild sweetness as it cooks.
Rice: Absorbs liquid from the gravy and turns soft, giving the dish body.