Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Rice Croquettes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mixture
Mix the melted butter and salt into the boiled rice.
Add the sugar and beaten eggs, reserving the white of one egg.
Shape and coat
Form the mixture into shapes.
Roll each shape in flour.
Dip each shape in the reserved egg white.
Roll each shape in cracker crumbs.
Fry
Fry in hot oil until light brown.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,611 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Boiled rice
- Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives it a soft interior.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture together and set when cooked, holding the shape.
- Cracker crumbs
- Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and fat that helps browning and flavor.
The step that matters
Frying in hot oil until light brown. Oil that is not hot enough lets the coating absorb grease and turn soggy before it crisps, while overheating browns the crumbs before the centre is heated through.
“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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