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Dessert

Rice Socle

A molded rice cake made by simmering rice, pounding into paste, shaping, refrigerating, and optionally baking with butter or egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,645 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rice Socle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Put the rice into warm water and simmer gently until soft.

  2. Drain the water and pound the hot rice in a mortar to a smooth paste.

  3. Turn the rice onto a pastry slab and knead it until pliant.

Shape and finish

  1. Shape the rice into socles using wooden spoons or moulds and trim with a sharp knife.

  2. Refrigerate the socles to set.

  3. Spread butter over the surfaces for cold service.

  4. Brush with beaten egg and bake until golden for hot service.

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

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rice + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the starchy body that sets into a firm, shapeable paste when cooked and pounded.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth surface when spread over the socles for cold service.
Egg
Brushed on the surface, it promotes browning and a golden finish during baking.

The step that matters

Pounding the hot rice to a smooth paste. The rice must be pounded while hot so its starch gelatinises and breaks down into a uniform, pliant dough. If it cools or is left lumpy, the socles will crumble when shaped and may not hold their form.

“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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