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Bacon and Rice Fritters

A fried fritter made from boiled rice, bacon, flour, spices, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bacon and Rice Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the rice as for curry.

  2. In a bowl, mix the rice, flour, cayenne, white pepper, parsley or sage, onion, and bacon.

  3. Dissolve Bovril in hot water and add to the mixture along with the beaten egg.

Fry

  1. Heat oil in a pan and fry spoonfuls of the mixture until golden brown.

  2. For a variation, omit the egg and add 1 teaspoon of baking powder instead.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the bulk of the fritter and gives a soft, tender interior.
Flour
Helps bind the mixture so the fritters hold their shape in the pan.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture together and helps set the fritters as they cook.
Bacon
Adds savory, salty flavor and fat that enriches the fritters.
Bovril
Adds concentrated meaty flavor and savoriness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Frying the spoonfuls until golden brown. The mixture is loose and moist, so it can fall apart or stay soft inside if the oil is not hot enough. Enough heat sets the egg and starch on the surface and browns it, while the interior cooks through.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, flour, pepper, parsley, onion, egg):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, flour, pepper, parsley, onion, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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