Why it works: Rice and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,645 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Rice Gems
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Combine the cold boiled rice and scalded cornmeal in a bowl.
Add enough water to create a thin batter.
Mix in the butter, salt, and baking powder.
Bake
Preheat the pans until hot.
Pour the mixture into the hot pans and bake quickly.
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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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Rice + eggtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,350 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Provides the main body and structure of the cakes as it cooks.
- Cold boiled rice
- Adds a tender, chewy texture and bulk to the batter.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help set the cakes as they bake.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and lighten.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richer flavour and a softer crumb.
The step that matters
Pour into hot pans. Pouring the batter into pans that are already hot starts the surface setting immediately, giving browned, crisp edges and helping the cakes release cleanly. Cold pans let the batter soak in and stick.
“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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