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Rice Cutlets

Rice cutlets are minced meat and cooked rice formed into patties, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Rice Cutlets

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rice Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the cold meat finely.

  2. If you have cold rice, use it; otherwise, boil some rice.

  3. Mix the rice and minced meat together well.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and a little nutmeg or lemon peel if desired.

  5. If the meat is very lean, add 2 oz of fat or beef suet.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into cutlets.

  2. Dip each cutlet in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the cutlets in hot fat until golden brown.

  4. Arrange the cutlets in a circle on a plate and garnish with fried parsley.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Rice + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 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

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the cutlet and provides savoury flavour.
Rice
Bulks out the meat and helps the cutlet hold a lighter, looser texture.
Egg
Binds the cutlet and, with the crumbs, gives a crisp golden coating.
Fat or beef suet
Adds moisture and richness to lean meat so the cutlets stay juicy.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets in hot fat until golden brown. Hot fat sears the egg and crumb coating quickly, forming a crisp crust that seals in moisture. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy while the inside stays underdone.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, pepper, egg, bread, beef):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, pepper, egg, bread, beef. 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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