Name: Pancakes of Rice
Ingredients: ½ pound rice; 1 pint cream; 8 eggs; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg; 8 ounces butter; flour; lard or dripping for frying

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pancakes of Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Boil the rice in a small amount of water until it reaches a jelly-like consistency.
Let the rice cool, then mix it with the cream, eggs, salt, and nutmeg.
Stir in the warmed butter.
Add enough flour to make a thick batter.

Fry

Fry the pancakes in a small amount of lard or dripping.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,779 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Rice: Cooked to a jelly-like consistency, it thickens the batter and gives the pancakes body.
Eggs: Set when heated, adding structure and holding the pancakes together.
Cream: Adds richness and moisture, softening the texture of the pancakes.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Flour: Thickens the batter so it holds its shape when fried.

“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.