Name: Economical Griddle Cakes
Ingredients: 1 pint cold hominy, rice, or mashed potato scraps; small pieces of bread; 1 pint milk (or more, as needed); flour (to make a batter); 2 teaspoons baking soda; 2 tablespoons cornstarch (maizena, optional); sweet milk (as needed)

Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Economical Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

1 pint cold hominy, rice, or mashed potato scraps
small pieces of bread
1 pint milk (or more, as needed)
flour (to make a batter)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 tablespoons cornstarch (maizena, optional)
sweet milk (as needed)

Directions

Combine all scraps, cold hominy, rice, mashed potatoes, and small pieces of bread in a stone jar or pitcher.
Add any leftover milk until you have about 1 pint of mixture.
Mix the accumulated scraps with flour to form a batter.
Sweeten the batter with 2 teaspoons of baking soda and add sweet milk if needed.
For a richer texture, add 2 tablespoons of cornstarch if not using eggs.

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.

Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Rice + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,611 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Brown Bread461 recipes

Rice Fritters84 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

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Economical Griddle Cakes