Name: Cold Persian Pilau
Ingredients: 2 cups rice; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt (optional); ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1 tablespoon sugar; 1 cup milk or cream; ½ cup blanched almonds; 1 tablespoon rose or orange-flower water

Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cold Persian Pilau

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

Boil the rice in water with salt, cinnamon, and sugar until cooked.
Drain any excess water.
Let the rice cool completely.

Finish and serve

Blend the blanched almonds with milk or cream, rose or orange-flower water, and sugar.
Pour the almond milk mixture over the cooled rice.
Serve immediately.

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.

Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,514 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,456 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 provides its main texture once cooked.
Blanched almonds: Blended into the milk to give body, richness and a nutty flavour.
Milk or cream: Carries the almonds and adds moisture and richness to the rice.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the cinnamon and floral water.

“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.