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Croquettes

Rice croquettes made from boiled rice, flour, and lard, then fried.

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

Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix lard or butter, sugar, cold water, salt, and nutmeg in a bowl.

  2. Add enough flour to create a soft dough.

Shape and fry the cakes

  1. Stir an egg into the cold boiled rice in another bowl.

  2. Add about 3 tablespoons of flour to the rice mixture to hold it together.

  3. Form the rice mixture into small round cakes, about 2 inches in diameter.

  4. Flatten the cakes slightly, using flour to prevent sticking.

  5. Heat lard or pork fat in a pan and fry the cakes until browned on both sides, turning once.

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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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 cakes and gives them their body.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and binds the rice so the cakes hold their shape.
Lard or butter
Adds fat that helps the cakes brown and gives a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the dough.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes until browned on both sides. Hot fat sears the surface, so the starches and sugars brown and form a crust that holds the cake together. Turning only once lets that crust set before the soft interior is disturbed and breaks apart.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, rice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Jalapenofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, rice. 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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