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Kice Fritters

A fried cake made from boiled rice, crackers, onion, eggs, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Kice Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the boiled rice, rolled crackers, chopped onion, beaten eggs, milk, salt, pepper, and Tabasco sauce if using. Mix until well combined.

  2. Form the mixture into small cakes.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat bacon fat and butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Fry the cakes until golden brown on both sides.

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled rice
Forms the bulk of the cakes and gives them a soft, tender body.
Crackers
Absorb moisture and help the cakes hold their shape while frying.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the cakes hold their form.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mixture stays soft rather than dry.
Onion
Adds savory flavor and aroma to the cakes.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes until golden brown on both sides. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction at moderate heat, which gives flavor and color. Too high a heat scorches the outside before the eggs set inside, while too low a heat leaves the cakes pale and greasy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, egg, pepper, sauce, milk, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, egg, pepper, sauce, milk, butter. 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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