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Rice Bignets

Rice Bignets are fried rice balls coated in bread crumbs, made with milk, rice, cream, sugar, spices, eggs, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Rice Bignets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice paste

  1. In a saucepan, simmer the milk and rice until it forms a very stiff paste.

  2. Stir in the thick cream, loaf sugar, lemon rind, cinnamon, mace, and nutmeg.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool, then beat in the eggs.

Shape and coat

  1. Cut the rice mixture into small pieces.

  2. Roll the pieces into balls.

  3. Crumble the bread crumbs into a bowl.

  4. Dip each ball in the egg mixture.

  5. Roll each ball in the bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry the balls quickly in hot oil until golden brown.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Thickens the milk into a stiff paste that holds the balls together when cooked.
Eggs
Bind the cooled mixture and help the coating set during frying.
New milk
Cooks with the rice to form the starchy base of the paste.
Thick cream
Adds richness and moisture to the paste.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns in hot oil.

The step that matters

Fry the balls quickly in hot oil until golden brown.. Oil that is hot enough sets the crumb coating fast and browns it before the rice paste inside overheats or breaks apart. Frying slowly lets the balls absorb oil and turn greasy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, rice, cream, sugar, lemon, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rice, cream, sugar, lemon, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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