Name: To Bottle Ale
Ingredients: 6 to 8 raisins; 2 teaspoons moist sugar; a little whole rice; a few horse-beans

Why it works: Rice and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,017 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Bottle Ale

Ingredients

6 to 8 raisins
2 teaspoons moist sugar
a little whole rice
a few horse-beans

Directions

Put 6 to 8 raisins into each bottle.
Add 2 teaspoons of moist sugar.
Include a little whole rice or a few horse-beans.
Seal the bottles and store them until ready to drink.

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 + beanstop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,017 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Raisin + ricetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together565 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Horse + beanstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Raisin + beanstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together32 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).