Name: Rice and Nut Croquettes
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; 1 cup milk; 2 cups cooked rice; 1 cup chopped peanuts or bleached almonds; onion juice, to taste; lemon juice, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; cayenne pepper, to taste

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rice and Nut Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the base

In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.
Stir in the flour and cook for 1-2 minutes.
Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens.

Shape and fry

Mix in the cooked rice, chopped peanuts or almonds, onion juice, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper.
Shape the mixture into croquettes.
Fry the croquettes in hot 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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Rice + peanuttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together670 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,374 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Peanut + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,043 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the white sauce taste rounded and flavourful.
Flour: Thickens the milk into a sauce that binds the rice together.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and softness.
Cooked rice: Forms the bulk of the croquettes and gives them their body and texture.
Peanuts or almonds: Add crunch and nutty flavour against the soft interior.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Stirring constantly while the milk is added keeps the flour smooth and prevents lumps. The sauce must be thick enough to hold its shape, otherwise the croquettes will be too soft to form and may fall apart in the hot oil.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, rice, peanut, lemon, pepper):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, rice, peanut, lemon, pepper. 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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Rice and Nut Croquettes