Why it works: Rice and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,366 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Puff Pastry
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the paste until smooth and pliable, adding water if needed.
Flour the board and rolling pin, then roll out the paste into an oblong sheet about ½ inch thick.
Press the butter into an oblong cake and lay it across the middle of the paste.
Fold the two ends over the butter until the edges are even.
Turn the paste so the folded edges are on the sides and roll it out into a long strip.
Fold the strip in three, turn, and roll again. Repeat this process for about five turns.
Chill the pastry for 10-15 minutes after every two rolls to harden the butter.
Sprinkle a few drops of lemon juice over the pastry before folding it again.
Roll the pastry in any direction as needed for your recipe.
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.
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,611 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, rice, flour, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Vanillafits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, rice, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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