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Rice and Mushroom Croquettes

A fried croquette made from rice, mushrooms, vegetables, and egg, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Rice and Mushroom Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Chop the mushrooms, then cook them for 15 minutes in the stock or water with the onion, carrot, and celery.

  2. Strain the mixture and set aside to cool.

Cook the rice

  1. Cook the rice in the remaining liquid until soft and absorbed.

Shape the croquettes

  1. Mix in the chopped mushrooms, butter, egg yolk, pepper, and salt.

  2. Let the mixture cool and stiffen.

  3. Form the mixture into croquettes using floured hands.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat the croquettes with egg and breadcrumbs.

  2. Refrigerate the coated croquettes for about 1 hour.

  3. Fry the croquettes in deep hot oil until golden brown.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Add savory flavor and bulk to the filling.
Raw rice
Softens and thickens as it cooks, giving the filling body that holds its shape.
Egg yolk
Binds the filling together and helps the croquettes hold their form.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother texture in the filling.
Stock or water
Cooks the rice and vegetables while adding savory flavor.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool and stiffen. As the rice cools, its starch sets and firms up, so the mixture can be shaped. Shaping it while warm makes it soft and sticky, and the croquettes can slump or fall apart in the hot oil.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, carrot, celery, rice, butter, egg, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, carrot, celery, rice, butter, egg, pepper. 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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