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Rice and Tomato Croquettes

A fried croquette made from rice, tomatoes, onions, carrots, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rice and Tomato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Cook tomatoes, onion, cloves, carrots, parsley, thyme, peppercorns, salt, and baking soda together for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and season.

  3. Rub through a sieve.

Add rice and egg

  1. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Add rice.

  3. Steam until rice is soft.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Add the beaten egg.

  6. Add grated cheese and cayenne pepper.

  7. Cool the mixture.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Dip the croquettes in breadcrumbs.

  3. Dip the croquettes in egg.

  4. Dip the croquettes in breadcrumbs again.

  5. Fry the croquettes until golden.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 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

Canned tomatoes
Provides the main liquid and acidity, giving the mixture its body and flavour.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and softens into a starchy base that holds the croquette together.
Egg
Binds the mixture and sets when heated, helping the croquettes keep their shape.
Cheese
Adds savoury flavour and richness, and helps bind the mixture.
Baking soda
Neutralises some of the tomato acidity, mellowing the flavour and softening the vegetables.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture. A warm mixture is soft and sticky, so croquettes made from it may collapse or tear. Cooling lets the starch from the rice firm up, so the mixture holds its shape when formed and coated.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, parsley, rice, cheese, carrot, egg):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, parsley, rice, cheese, carrot, egg. 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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