Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Rice Croquettes
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the rice
Wash the rice well.
Put the rice into a saucepan.
Add sugar and lemon rind.
Pour in the milk and simmer gently for 2 to 3 hours.
Remove the lemon peel.
Spread the rice on a plate to cool.
Shape and coat
Form the rice into small balls.
Beat the egg.
Roll the balls in the egg.
Cover the balls with breadcrumbs.
Fry and serve
Melt the clarified dripping in a frying pan.
Fry the croquettes until light brown.
Place a piece of white paper on a sieve in front of the fire.
Put the cooked croquettes on the paper.
Arrange the croquettes on a paper doily.
Garnish with dried fruit.
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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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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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Carolina rice
- Starch that thickens as it simmers, giving the croquettes their body and firm shape.
- Milk
- Liquid that the rice absorbs and cooks in, adding softness and creaminess to the filling.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown when fried.
- Egg
- Binds the coating so the breadcrumbs adhere to the rice balls.
- Breadcrumbs
- Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.
- Clarified dripping
- Fat for frying that browns the outside and adds richness.
The step that matters
Simmer the rice gently until it is thick. Slow simmering lets the rice absorb the milk and soften evenly while the starch thickens. Rushing or boiling hard can scorch the milk on the pan base or leave the grains unevenly cooked, so the mixture will not hold its shape when formed into balls.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, sugar, milk, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, milk, egg. 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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