Why it works: Butter and milk 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
In a bowl, combine the cold boiled rice, sugar, melted butter, salt, and egg.
Add enough milk to create a firm paste and mix thoroughly.
Shape the mixture into balls.
Coat and fry
Dip each ball in beaten egg, then roll in flour.
Fry in hot lard until golden brown.
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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Butter + milktop 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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cold boiled rice
- Forms the bulk of the croquette and gives it a soft, starchy interior.
- Egg
- Binds the mixture together and helps it hold its shape.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture to the rice mixture.
- Flour
- Forms a dry coating that helps the outside brown and crisp when fried.
The step that matters
Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy before it browns, and the croquettes may fall apart. Frying in hot fat seals the flour coating quickly so the interior stays moist while the outside browns.
“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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