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Potato and Rice Cakes

A baked cake made from mashed potatoes and boiled rice, flavored with butter, pepper, sea salt, cayenne pepper, and topped with beaten egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 851 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Potato and Rice Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Combine mashed potatoes and boiled rice in a bowl.

  2. Add a little butter and season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Roll the mixture out on a floured surface to about 1.5 inches thick.

  4. Cut into rounds or squares using a cutter.

Bake

  1. Brush the tops with beaten egg.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and starch that bind the cakes and give a soft, tender interior.
Boiled rice
Adds body and chew, helping the cakes hold their shape after cutting.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.
Beaten egg
Coats the tops so they brown evenly and turn golden in the oven.

The step that matters

Rolling to an even thickness. Uneven thickness makes some cakes dry or burnt while others stay underbaked in the centre. Rolling the mixture to a consistent depth, about 1.5 inches, lets the whole batch cook at the same rate and brown evenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, pepper, 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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