Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Rice Griddle Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Rub the rice through a sieve.
In a bowl, combine the sieved rice with the beaten eggs, melted butter, and milk.
Sift the flour with the baking powder and mix it into the rice mixture until well combined.
Cook
Preheat a griddle and grease it with a piece of fat salt pork.
Bake the batter immediately on the hot griddle.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set on the griddle.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and turn light.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the griddle cakes together as they cook.
- Cold boiled rice
- Adds body and a soft, tender texture to the batter.
- Milk
- Moistens the batter so the flour hydrates and the mixture pours smoothly.
The step that matters
Bake the batter immediately on the hot griddle. Baking powder begins releasing gas as soon as it is wet, so waiting lets bubbles escape and weakens the rise. A hot griddle sets the outside quickly so the cakes puff rather than spread.
“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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