Why it works: Rice and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 933 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Rice Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine the cold boiled rice, flour, egg, corn starch, and salt.
Add enough sour milk or buttermilk to make a smooth batter.
Mix in the baking soda and melted butter just before baking.
If using sweet milk, reduce the baking soda and double the amount of cream of tartar.
Bake
Bake immediately.
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 + corntop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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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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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Cold boiled rice
- Adds body and a tender, chewy texture to the batter.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together.
- Egg
- Binds the ingredients and helps set the cakes as they cook.
- Sour milk or buttermilk
- Supplies moisture and acidity that react with the baking soda to lift the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in sour milk or buttermilk to produce gas that makes the cakes rise.
The step that matters
Mix in the baking soda and melted butter just before baking.. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets acid, so the batter should go into the heat right after mixing to keep the rise from fading.
“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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