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Cheese and Rice Croquettes

Cheese and rice croquettes are fried balls of rice mixed with cheese, butter, milk, and flour, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese and Rice Croquettes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cheese sauce

  1. Combine milk, butter, and flour in a saucepan over medium heat to make a thick white sauce.

  2. Add shredded cheese to the sauce, stir until melted, and season with salt to taste.

Shape and fry

  1. Allow the mixture to cool, then combine it with cold rice and shape into croquettes.

  2. Roll each croquette in bread crumbs, dip in beaten egg, and roll again in crumbs.

  3. Fry the croquettes in deep oil 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Shredded pimento cheese
Melts into the sauce to add rich flavor and a creamy, binding texture.
Butter or substitute
Adds fat and richness, and helps build the smooth base of the white sauce.
Cold boiled rice
Forms the bulk of the croquette, giving body and a soft interior.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a white sauce that holds the mixture together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving it smoothness and body.
Beaten egg
Coats the croquettes so the bread crumbs adhere and form a crisp outer layer.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. If the sauce and rice are still warm, the mixture stays soft and sticky and will not hold its shape. Chilling firms the starch and fat so croquettes keep their form through frying.

“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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