Why it works: Buckwheat and flour work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 660 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Buckwheat Cakes and Roast Fresh Pork, with Sugar Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
In a bowl, mix buckwheat flour, salt, and baking powder.
In another bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, and sugar.
Combine wet and dry ingredients until smooth.
Cook and serve
Heat a griddle or skillet over medium heat and grease lightly.
Pour batter onto the griddle to form cakes and cook until bubbles form, then flip and cook until golden brown.
For the pork, roast in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.
Serve the buckwheat cakes with sugar syrup and the roast pork.
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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Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together660 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,842 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Buckwheat + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together328 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Milk + porktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,386 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
What each ingredient does
- Buckwheat flour
- Forms the main structure of the cakes, with a nutty, earthy flavour.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help give the cakes structure and tenderness.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during cooking so the cakes rise and become light.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown evenly on the griddle.
The step that matters
Cooking the cakes on the griddle. Cook over medium heat so the outside browns before the centre sets. Wait for bubbles to form on the surface before flipping, so the cakes hold together and do not tear.
Swap the buckwheat
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, sugar, pork, syrup):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Buckwheatthe original
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Jalapenofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, sugar, pork, syrup. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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