Why it works: Apple and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,311 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Apple Snowballs
Ingredients
Directions
Wash the rice thoroughly and boil it for 10 minutes.
Drain the rice and spread it on small floured pudding cloths.
Peel and core the apples, then fill the centers with sugar.
Place the apples on the rice and tie them in the cloths.
Boil the wrapped apples for 20 minutes.
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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Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,311 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + ricetop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,744 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, rice):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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