Skip to main content
Main

Rice Croquettes

Rice croquettes are fried rice cakes coated in breadcrumbs, served with powdered sugar and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Rice Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Wash the rice in cold water and drain it.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the rice, boiled milk, lemon peelings, and cinnamon stick.

  3. Cover and cook gently over low heat until the rice is nearly done.

  4. Add powdered sugar and butter, cooking until thoroughly done.

  5. Add more milk if it gets too dry.

  6. Remove from heat, take out the lemon peelings and cinnamon stick, and mix the rice well.

Make the custard

  1. When somewhat cool, add the egg yolks and essence of lemon or orange-flower water, mixing well.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a buttered pan, cover with buttered paper, and let it cool.

Shape, fry and serve

  1. Shape the rice into croquettes, dip in beaten eggs, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot lard until golden, drain, and roll in powdered sugar mixed with ground cinnamon before serving.

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.

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. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the croquettes, thickening as it absorbs the milk and setting when cooled.
Milk
Cooks the rice into a soft, creamy mass and keeps it moist during cooking.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it bind and set as it cools.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer, smoother texture to the rice.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the rice and helps it cook to a tender, cohesive texture.
Beaten eggs
Act as a binder so the bread crumbs stick to the shaped croquettes.

The step that matters

Cool the rice mixture fully before shaping. The egg yolks are added while the mixture is only somewhat cool, and the rice must then cool until firm so the croquettes hold their shape. Shaping a warm, soft mixture makes it slump and tear during dipping and frying.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, cinnamon, sugar, butter, egg, bread):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, cinnamon, sugar, butter, egg, bread. 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.

More rice croquettes recipes

with Jelly 5Sweet 4 See all 315 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes