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Rice Croquettes

A fried dish of cooked rice mixed with milk, sugar, egg yolks, butter, and spices, formed into rolls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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

Make the rice base

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. Boil the rice in water with the lid on.

  3. Add the milk when the rice is half cooked.

  4. Let the mixture simmer until dry.

  5. Mash the rice.

Shape and fry

  1. Mix in sugar, egg yolks, salt, and melted butter.

  2. Form the mixture into rolls using floured hands.

  3. Fry the rolls in deep lard until golden brown.

  4. Serve with sauce if desired.

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 + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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
Forms the bulk of the mixture and sets into a firm, moldable base as it cooks and dries.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the rice into a creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness and structure when the rolls are set.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender interior.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the exterior brown when fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture simmer until dry. If the rice still holds too much liquid, the mixture will be too soft to shape and may break apart or absorb oil while frying. Cooking off the moisture gives a firm mass that holds its shape.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Turmericfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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