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 Croquettes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rice
Boil the rice until tender and let it cool.
Form the cooled rice into cakes about ½ inch thick.
Batter and fry
Prepare a thin batter by mixing flour with milk or egg.
Dip each rice cake into the batter.
Heat sweet lard in a frying pan over medium heat.
Fry the cakes until crisp and brown on one side, then flip and fry the other side.
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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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,611 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Forms the body of the croquette, and its starch sets firm as it cools and binds the cake.
- Flour
- Mixed with milk or egg to form a thin batter that coats the cakes and crisps when fried.
- Milk or egg
- Liquid in the batter that helps the flour coat evenly and promotes browning in the pan.
- Sweet lard
- Frying fat that conducts heat evenly and browns the batter-coated surface.
The step that matters
Let the rice cool before forming the cakes. Warm rice is soft and sticky and will not hold its shape. Cooling lets the starch firm up so the cakes stay intact when dipped and fried.
“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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