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
Ingredients
Directions
Make the rice mixture
Wash the rice and place it in a double boiler with the milk.
Cook until all the milk has been absorbed by the rice.
Add the beaten egg yolks, parsley, salt, and pepper, mix well, and let cool.
Shape and coat
Shape the mixture into desired forms.
Roll the shapes in beaten egg and bread crumbs.
Fry and serve
Heat the fat in a frying basket.
Fry the croquettes until golden brown.
Serve with cream or tomato sauce.
Shape like nests and add a bit of jelly before serving.
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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Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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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 + parsleytop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,762 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Rice
- Starch that absorbs the milk and sets into a firm, shapeable mass as it cooks.
- Milk
- Cooks into the rice, giving it a creamy, moist interior.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the rice mixture and help bind it so the shapes hold together.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, golden outer coating when fried.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, loose rice mixture is soft and sticky, so it tears and deforms when shaped. Cooling lets the starch firm up so the croquettes hold their form through breading and frying.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, egg, pepper, bread):
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
- Turmericfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, egg, pepper, bread. 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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