Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Rice Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.
Combine the milk, flour, cooked rice, and baking powder.
Fold in the beaten egg whites.
Fry
Heat lard in a pan.
Drop a tablespoon of batter for each cake into the hot lard and fry until golden brown.
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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Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,611 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour 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
- Eggs
- Whites beaten separately and folded in add lightness and help the cakes rise and stay tender.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they fry.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and become light.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its liquid base and softness.
- Cooked rice
- Adds body and a soft, slightly chewy texture to the cakes.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the whites intact. Stirring vigorously would deflate the batter, so the cakes would rise less and turn out denser.
“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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