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Rice Cutlets

Rice cutlets are small fried patties made from cooked rice, meat, breadcrumbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Rice Cutlets

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rice Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice and onion

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. Boil the rice in 3/4 pint of stock or water until tender, stirring often until all liquid is absorbed.

  3. Boil the onion separately.

  4. Chop the onion very finely.

Make the mixture

  1. Combine the cooked rice, chopped meat, breadcrumbs, onion, parsley, and seasoning.

  2. Mix thoroughly and cook the mixture for 2–3 minutes.

  3. Turn the mixture onto a plate to cool.

  4. Once cool, shape the mixture into small cutlets.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each cutlet in egg.

  2. Coat each cutlet in breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry the cutlets in very hot deep fat until light brown.

  4. Serve the cutlets on lace paper and garnish with fried parsley.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooked until tender in stock, it absorbs liquid and gives the cutlets their bulk and soft body.
Cooked meat
Forms the main body of the cutlets and provides savoury flavour and protein.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture in the mixture and form the crisp, golden coating when fried.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the mixture.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A warm, moist mixture is soft and sticky, so cutlets can fall apart or stick to the hands. Cooling lets the starch and breadcrumbs firm up so the shapes hold during dipping and frying.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, rice, parsley, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, rice, parsley, 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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