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Rice Croquettes

A fried, crumb-coated ball of cooked rice mixed with milk, sugar, butter, eggs, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rice Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Soak rice overnight in enough tepid water to cover it.

  2. Drain the rice almost dry.

  3. Add fresh milk to the rice.

  4. Steam until very tender.

  5. Stir in sugar, butter, and salt.

Make the custard

  1. Beat eggs to a stiff froth.

  2. Add the beaten eggs to the mixture and cook together for 5 to 10 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Add lemon juice.

  5. Turn the mixture onto a buttered dish.

  6. Let it cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Flour your hands.

  2. Roll the mixture into oval balls or shape in a wine glass.

  3. Beat one egg lightly.

  4. Dip croquettes in the beaten egg.

  5. Roll the croquettes in cracker crumbs.

  6. Fry the croquettes in boiling lard 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 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
Softens into a starchy base that holds the croquette together when cooled.
Eggs
Set when cooked, binding the mixture and adding richness and structure.
Fresh milk
Adds moisture and creaminess as the rice absorbs it while steaming.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown when fried.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer coating when fried.

The step that matters

Cook the eggs into the mixture gently. Eggs set when heated, and if they cook too fast or too long they can turn the mixture grainy or rubbery. Cooking over moderate heat for the stated time sets them smoothly and keeps the mixture soft enough to shape once cooled.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, sugar, butter, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, sugar, butter, egg. 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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