Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Kice Croquettes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Combine the boiled rice, egg yolks, and salt in a bowl.
Form the mixture into balls.
Roll the balls in flour.
Fry
Fry the balls in hot lard until golden brown, similar to frying doughnuts.
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.
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,611 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rice + eggtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,350 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Boiled rice
- Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives it a soft, tender interior.
- Egg yolks
- Bind the rice together and add richness to the mixture.
- Flour
- Forms a dry coating that helps the outside brown when fried.
The step that matters
Fry the balls in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the coating absorbs excess fat and turns greasy while the centre stays cold. Hot fat quickly sets and browns the flour coating, sealing the surface so the croquettes stay intact and crisp.
“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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