Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Rice Croquettes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the rice mixture
Steam the rice in boiling water until very soft.
While hot, add butter, sugar, beaten egg yolk, and more milk if needed.
Cool the mixture, then shape it into ovals.
Coat and fry
Roll the ovals in crumbs, dip in beaten egg, and roll in crumbs again.
Fry the croquettes until golden brown.
Serve
Serve with jelly.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Softened by steaming, it forms the bulk and body of the croquettes.
- Egg yolk
- Adds richness and helps bind the rice mixture together.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richer flavour and a tender texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the coating brown during frying.
- Egg
- Forms a sticky layer so the crumbs adhere evenly to the shapes.
The step that matters
Cool the mixture before shaping. A hot rice mixture is soft and sticky, so it is hard to shape and may fall apart. Cooling firms the starch, letting the ovals hold their form through coating and frying.
“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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