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Beef and Rice Croquettes

A fried croquette made from finely chopped beef and boiled rice, seasoned with onion juice, nutmeg, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef and Rice Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat and boiled rice.

  2. Add salt, pepper, onion juice, nutmeg, and parsley; mix well.

  3. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each croquette in the beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the croquettes in hot lard 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped meat
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the croquettes.
Boiled rice
Adds bulk and a soft interior that holds the shape while binding with the meat.
Beaten egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs adhere evenly during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer layer that browns in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly; if it is too cool, the croquettes absorb grease and turn soggy before the coating sets and turns golden.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, egg, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, 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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