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Broccoli Cheese Casserole

"This recipe is a real hit with anyone, especially kids. They just love the combination of the broccoli, rice and cheese! The water chestnuts add a surprise crunch. Great for a buffet crowd. Buttered bread crumbs may be substituted for almonds as a topping."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Broccoli and water chestnut work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 46 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

8 to 10 servings

Ingredients

Contains: milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Broccoli + water chestnuttop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Broccoli + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together206 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Rice + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  4. Cheese + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,014 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Mushroom + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the water chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (broccoli, cheese, sauce, cream, mushroom, rice, almond):

  1. Coconutbetter flavor fit
  2. Avocadobetter flavor fit
  3. Grapeabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Water chestnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against broccoli, cheese, sauce, cream, mushroom, rice, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).