Name: Rice Griddle-cakes I
Ingredients: 2 ½ cups flour; ¼ cup sugar; ¾ cup cold cooked rice; 1 ⅓ cups milk; 1 tablespoon baking powder; 1 egg; ¾ teaspoon salt; 2 tablespoons melted butter

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Griddle-cakes I

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Mix and sift the dry ingredients.
Work in the cold cooked rice with your fingertips.

Make and cook

Add the beaten egg, milk, and melted butter.
Cook on a griddle like other griddle cakes.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter 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

Flour: Forms the main structure of the batter once mixed with liquid.
Cold cooked rice: Adds body and a tender, slightly chewy texture to the cakes.
Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
Baking powder: Releases gas during cooking so the cakes rise and turn light.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its liquid base.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

“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.