Name: Ground Rice Pancakes
Ingredients: 4 oz. ground rice (about 1 cup); 4 eggs; 1 pint milk (2 cups); jam; sifted sugar; powdered cinnamon; butter or oil for frying

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 ↓

Ground Rice Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix the milk, eggs, and ground rice to make a batter.

Cook the pancakes

Heat butter or oil in a frying pan over medium heat.
Pour a small amount of batter into the pan to form thin pancakes.
Fry until golden brown on one side, then flip and fry the other side.
Keep pancakes warm until all are cooked, then serve hot.

Fill and serve

Sprinkle each pancake with sugar and cinnamon, add a spoonful of jam, and fold.

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.

Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,137 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Ground rice: Forms the body of the batter, giving the pancakes their structure and a slightly grainy texture.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help set the thin pancakes as they cook.
Milk: Thins the batter to a pourable consistency and adds moisture and browning from its sugars.
Jam: Adds sweetness and fruity flavour to the folded pancakes.

“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.