Skip to main content
Main

Rice Puffs

Rice puffs are fried batter cakes made with eggs, cooked rice, butter, sour milk, baking soda, flour, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs separately until very light.

  2. Combine the cooked rice, butter, sour milk, baking soda, and flour in a bowl.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites just before frying.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the lard until boiling.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard and fry until light brown.

  3. Remove and drain on a napkin, keeping them covered to stay hot.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Beaten whites trap air, giving the puffs their light, airy structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, helping the puffs rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture to the batter.
Cooked rice
Supplies bulk and a tender, chewy texture inside each puff.
Flour
Provides structure that holds the batter together while it fries.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a more tender crumb.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites just before frying. Beaten egg whites hold air bubbles that expand in hot fat. If they are folded in too early or overmixed, they deflate and the puffs turn dense.

“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.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes