Why it works: Peas and spinach work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 550 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓
With Rice
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the rice according to the recipe for boiling rice.
Once cooked, place the rice into a soup tureen.
Skim the soup and add the sweet butter to the tureen.
Pour the soup over the rice and stir until the butter is melted.
If the color is too pale, add a few leaves of spinach that have been passed through a fine sieve.
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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Peas + spinachtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together550 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Rice + spinachtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together518 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
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Rice + peastop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,434 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + peastop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,887 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the peas
The recipe marks peas as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, spinach):
- Cashew nutfits better
- Sesamefits better
- Chickpeafits better
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, spinach. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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