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Bice Fritters

Rice fritters made with boiled rice, apple, currants, sweet spice, sugar, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,918 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Bice Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Boil the rice in a large quantity of water for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the rice and let it dry.

Make and fry the batter

  1. Stir in the sugar, butter, chopped apple, currants, sweet spice, and beaten eggs.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into a frying pan.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain and sift sugar over the fritters before serving.

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. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

  3. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carolina rice
Starch that bulks out the batter and gives the fritters their body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and set during frying to hold the fritters in shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a tender texture.
Apple
Adds moisture and fruity sweetness to the fritters.

The step that matters

Let the rice dry after draining. Excess surface water left on the cooked rice dilutes the egg-based batter, so the spoonfuls spread and fry less cleanly and may steam rather than crisp in the pan.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, sugar, butter, apple, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, butter, apple, egg. 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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