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Nuts with Rice

Rice balls made with cooked rice, nuts, cheese, and egg, fried until golden and garnished with watercress or lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and watercress share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Nuts with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the cooked rice, chopped almonds or peanuts, grated cheese, and salt.

  2. Add the beaten egg and mix until well combined.

  3. Shape the mixture into balls.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling.

  2. Fry the rice balls until golden brown.

  3. Garnish with watercress or lettuce before serving.

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. Almond + watercresstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Rice + watercresstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Rice + cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together942 recipes

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

  5. Egg + watercresstop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked rice
Forms the bulk of the ball, giving it body that holds its shape.
Beaten egg
Binds the rice, nuts and cheese together so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the mixture stick together.
Chopped almonds or peanuts
Adds crunch and nutty flavour against the soft rice.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and browns the outside of the balls.

The step that matters

Shaping the balls before frying. The mixture must be firm and well bound by the egg; if it is loose or wet, the balls can fall apart in the hot fat. Pressing them firmly and keeping them compact helps them hold together and fry evenly.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, cheese, egg, watercress):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cheese, egg, watercress. 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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