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Rice and Cheese Croquettes

A fried croquette made from rice, cheese, milk, egg, and thick white sauce, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice and Cheese Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Cook rice in milk until absorbed.

  2. Add cheese, salt, pepper, and egg to the rice mixture.

  3. Stir in enough thick white sauce to make a shapeable consistency.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into croquettes.

  2. Dip each croquette in breadcrumbs, then in beaten egg, and again in breadcrumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in deep fat 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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Rice + cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 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
Absorbs the milk and forms the bulk of the soft, creamy filling.
Milk
Cooks into the rice, adding moisture and a tender, creamy texture.
Egg
Binds the filling so the croquettes hold their shape while frying.
Cheese
Adds rich flavor and helps the filling set as it cools.
Thick white sauce
Adds moisture and body so the mixture can be shaped into croquettes.

The step that matters

Stir in enough thick white sauce to make a shapeable consistency.. Too little sauce leaves the mixture too loose to hold its shape, so croquettes can break apart in the hot fat. Too much makes them soft and hard to handle. Checking that the mixture holds together before shaping prevents both problems.

“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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