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Preserve

Rice Cutlets

Rice cutlets are pan‑fried patties made from cooked rice, mutton, beef, suet, bread crumbs, onion, cayenne pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Rice Cutlets

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Rice Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix the rice, mutton, beef, suet, bread crumbs, onion, cayenne, and salt with enough cream or broth to moisten.

  2. Warm the mixture and let it set in a large shallow dish.

  3. Cut into the shape of cutlets.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the cutlets in beaten egg.

  2. Coat the cutlets with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in hot oil until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve on a napkin with fried parsley or with a sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Mutton + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Rice + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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 cutlet and gives it a soft, tender body.
Cooked mutton
Adds savory meat flavor and helps the cutlet hold together when chopped fine.
Cooked beef
Adds more meat flavor and substance to the cutlet's filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the cutlets moist and richly flavored.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture, and brown in the frying oil.
Eggs (in the method)
Bind the coating so the bread crumbs stick and brown evenly.

The step that matters

Let the mixture set before shaping. Warming and resting let the crumbs and suet absorb the cream or broth and firm up, so the cutlets hold their shape instead of cracking or falling apart in the oil.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, mutton, beef, bread, pepper, cream):

  1. Tomatofits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, mutton, beef, bread, pepper, cream. 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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