Name: Sausages and Rice
Ingredients: 8 sausages; 2 cups rice; 4 tomatoes; brown sauce with curry (optional)

Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Sausages and Rice

Ingredients

8 sausages
2 cups rice
4 tomatoes
brown sauce with curry (optional)

Directions

Prepare

Cook the rice according to package instructions.
Broil or fry the sausages in a pan until browned on the edges, about 1 hour.
Spread the cooked rice in a thick layer on a serving dish.

Serve

Arrange the sausages and sliced tomatoes alternately around the rice.
Serve with brown sauce with curry, if desired.

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 + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,065 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,469 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Rice + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,396 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sausages: Provide the main protein and savoury flavour, browning on the edges when broiled or fried.
Rice: Forms the thick base layer that carries the sausages and tomatoes.
Tomatoes: Add moisture and gentle acidity to balance the rich sausages.