Why it works: Pepper and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,379 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Cheese FIEtr
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Mix cheese, cayenne pepper, and grated cheese in a bowl.
Grease a baking sheet and place a ring on it.
Line the ring with greased paper and grease the inside lightly.
Fill the lined ring with the cheese mixture.
Prick the bottom of the crust a few times.
Cover with greased kitchen paper and fill with rice to keep the crust in place.
Bake until golden brown.
Remove the paper and rice, then return the crust to the oven to dry before filling.
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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Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,379 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Cheese + ricetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together942 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,232 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Mace + ricetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together932 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, pepper, anchovy, rice):
- Thymefits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Celeryfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, pepper, anchovy, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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