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 mixture
In a bowl, combine cooked rice, milk, eggs, grated lemon rind, melted butter, sugar, and salt. Mix well until combined.
Shape the mixture into small croquettes.
Fry
Heat deep lard in a frying pan.
Fry the croquettes until golden brown on all sides.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Bind the rice and milk mixture so the croquettes hold their shape.
- Cooked rice
- Forms the bulk of the croquettes, giving them their body and soft interior.
- Milk
- Moistens the rice and softens the mixture so it can be shaped.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and fat, contributing to flavour and a tender texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the exterior brown in the frying pan.
The step that matters
Shape the mixture into small croquettes. The mixture is soft and wet, so if it is too loose it may fall apart in the hot lard. Keeping the shapes small and compact helps them hold together and cook evenly through to a crisp, golden exterior.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, egg, butter, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, egg, butter, sugar. 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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