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Dessert

Indian Pancake

A pancake made from boiled rice, eggs, sugar, and cinnamon, fried in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Indian Pancake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the rice in milk until soft, then mash it to a pulp.

  2. In a bowl, combine the rice pulp, beaten eggs, sugar, and cinnamon.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat butter in a pan and pour in the mixture.

  2. Fry until one side is done.

  3. Move to the front of the fire to brown the top.

  4. Sprinkle pounded sugar over the pancake.

  5. Cut into four parts 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. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Rice
Cooked and mashed to a pulp, it forms the body of the batter and gives the pancake its soft texture.
Eggs
Beaten eggs bind the batter and set when heated, holding the pancake together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during cooking.
Butter
Fat for frying that adds flavour and helps the underside brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Fry until one side is done. Cooking on too high a heat can scorch the underside before the egg and rice mixture sets through. Moderate heat lets the pancake firm up evenly before it is turned or finished under heat.

“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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