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Rice Cakes

A fried batter of boiled rice, egg, baking powder, flour, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rice Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the cold boiled rice with the beaten egg, baking powder, and enough flour to form a batter.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and sugar.

Fry

  1. Heat a skillet over medium heat and add a little butter.

  2. Spoon the mixture into the skillet and fry until golden brown on both sides.

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.

  1. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cold boiled rice
Forms the bulk of the cakes and gives them a soft, chewy interior.
Egg
Binds the rice and flour together so the cakes hold their shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the batter and helps the cakes rise.
Flour
Adds body to the batter so it holds together when fried.
Butter
Browns the outside of the cakes and adds richness.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown on both sides. Cooking over medium heat lets the centre set while the surface browns. Too high a heat browns the outside before the inside is cooked through, and the cakes may fall apart when flipped if the batter has not set.

“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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