Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Rice and Shrimps
Ingredients
Directions
Make the rice
Melt the butter in a pan.
Stir in the boiled rice and add the cream.
Season until the rice is the color of the shrimp.
Cut the shrimp into cubes and mix them into the rice.
Boil for about 10 minutes.
Prepare the peppers
Boil the Spanish peppers until soft, then pass them through a 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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,787 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Shrimp + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,931 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Shrimp + ricetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,055 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).
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Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,379 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Shrimp
- Provides the main protein and a firm, tender bite within the soft rice.
- Cream
- Adds richness and moisture, and thickens as it simmers with the rice.
- Boiled rice
- Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the cream to give a creamy body.
- Butter
- Adds fat and rich flavor, and helps coat the rice as it cooks.
The step that matters
Boil for about 10 minutes. Once the cream is in, a hard boil can scorch it on the pan base or make it separate. Keep the heat moderate and stir so the cream thickens smoothly and the rice cooks evenly.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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