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Rice Croquettes, Savoury

A savory dish of rice balls coated in flour, made with onion, herbs, parsley, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Rice Croquettes, Savoury

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice and onion

  1. Boil the rice in stock or water until tender and absorbed.

  2. Chop the onion finely and fry it in butter until tender, without browning.

  3. Add herbs and parsley to the frying pan and cook for 2–3 minutes.

  4. Combine the onion mixture with the rice.

Shape and coat

  1. Let the mixture dry in the oven until it is rollable.

  2. Separate the yolk from one egg.

  3. Beat the whole egg with the egg white.

  4. Mix the rice mixture with the beaten eggs thoroughly.

  5. Roll the mixture into balls the size of small walnuts.

  6. Season the balls with pepper and salt.

  7. Coat the balls in flour.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch swells and sets as it cooks and dries, giving the croquettes their body.
Onion
Softened in butter, it adds sweetness and a savoury base to the mixture.
Butter
Fat that carries the onion's flavour and keeps the mixture moist and tender.
Eggs
Bind the rice together and set on heating, so the balls hold their shape.
Mixed savoury herbs
Add aroma that runs through the rice mixture.

The step that matters

Drying the mixture until it is rollable. Excess moisture keeps the mixture soft and makes the balls fall apart, while over-drying leaves it crumbly. The starch from the rice needs to be firm enough to hold its shape and bind with the egg when it is formed and cooked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, parsley, egg, pepper, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, parsley, egg, pepper, flour. 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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