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Dessert

Rice Fritters

Rice fritters are sweet fried cakes made from lemon rind, milk, rice, sugar, brandy, egg yolks, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Rice Fritters

Why it works: Brandy and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Rice Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice base

  1. Pare the rind of the lemon very thin and boil it in milk with sugar and rice until the rice is soft.

  2. Remove the lemon peel and beat the rice with brandy.

  3. Let the rice cool, spread it 4 inches thick, and cut into rounds.

Fill and coat

  1. Make an opening in each round and insert a piece of jelly or jam, then close the opening.

  2. Shape the mixture into fritters, brush with egg yolks, cover with bread crumbs, and fry in lard.

Finish

  1. Dust with fine sugar and glaze with a salamander.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Rice + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooks into a thick starchy base that sets firm enough to shape and fry.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to give a soft, creamy moisture to the base.
Egg yolks
Brushed on the fritters so the bread crumbs adhere and brown during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried in lard.
Sugar
Sweetens the rice base and helps the fritter surface brown.
Lemon rind
Adds aroma and a citrus note to the milk and rice.

The step that matters

Let the rice cool before shaping. Warm rice is soft and sticky, so it will not hold its shape when cut or filled. Cooling lets the starch firm up so the rounds keep their form and the filling stays enclosed while frying.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, milk, rice, sugar, brandy, egg, bread):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, milk, rice, sugar, brandy, egg, bread. 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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