Why it works: Rice and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,366 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Rice Cheese Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, whip the eggs until frothy.
Make and bake
Mix the ground rice, butter, white sugar, lemon rind, and lemon juice with the whipped eggs.
Line patty pans with puff pastry and fill them with the mixture.
Bake until golden.
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 + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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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 + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Whipped eggs trap air and, with their proteins, set the filling into a light structure.
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the filling rich and tender.
- Ground rice
- Provides the body of the filling, giving it a fine, slightly dense texture.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps it brown in the oven.
- Lemon
- Lemon rind adds aroma and juice adds acidity that brightens the sweet filling.
The step that matters
Whip the eggs until frothy. Whipping incorporates air bubbles into the eggs. These bubbles expand in the oven and help lift and lighten the filling, so the eggs should be frothy before the other ingredients are mixed in.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
- Raisinfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, sugar, 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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