Name: Rice Griddle Cakes
Ingredients: ½ cup rice; 1 quart milk; 4 egg yolks; flour (enough to make a stiff batter); 2 egg whites; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Rice and milk 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 Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

Boil the rice and let it cool.
In a bowl, combine the milk, egg yolks, and enough flour to create a stiff batter.
Beat the egg whites until frothy and set aside.
Stir the baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt into the batter.
Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Cook

Cook the batter on a griddle until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,611 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Egg whites: Beaten and folded in to make the batter light and airy.
Egg yolks: Add richness and help bind the batter together.
Baking soda: Reacts with the cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cakes rise.
Cream of tartar: Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to produce lift.
Flour: Provides structure so the batter holds together as a stiff batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped to a foam. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter; stirring vigorously knocks it out, so the griddle cakes cook up flatter and 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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Rice Griddle Cakes