Name: Another Rice Paste
Ingredients: 1 pint water; ½ pound good rice; 1 small bit butter; 1 egg

Why it works: Rice and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,645 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Another Rice Paste

Ingredients

1 pint water
½ pound good rice
1 small bit butter
1 egg

Directions

Cook the rice

Boil 1 pint of water.
Add ½ pound of good rice and cook until tender.
Drain the water.

Make the paste

Pound the rice in a mortar with a small bit of butter and 1 beaten egg.
Roll out the mixture to cover any fruit tart.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Rice + eggtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,350 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).